Young Entrepreneurs of LaFayette win awards

BY KADIE TAYLOR

THE LAFAYETTE SUN

LAFAYETTE — Two of LaFayette’s young entrepreneurs were recognized with Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards at the LaFayette Main Street Annual Meeting: the owners of Addie’s Crazy Cones and Winnie’s L3mmies.

Winnie’s L3mmies

Winnie L3mmies’ owner Kendall (Winnie) Williams said she started her business because of her admiration for her entrepreneur grandmother and mother.

“I started this business when I was seven years old, because I looked up to my mom and my granny when they started a business,” she said. “It really inspired me to start my own because it looked like fun. We started with the name, and everybody called me Winnie. So we just thought of Winnies L3mmies and started with my lemonade stand, and I wanted to be like my granny.”

Throughout sharing her love for lemonade with locals, Williams said she has felt supported by her community.

“I feel good,” she said. “I feel loved and supported, and they encouraged me to put my mind to it. I feel good, and I’m glad they’re supporting me and what I’ve accomplished. I’m 10 years old, and it feels good to be a young entrepreneur.”

Williams’s mom, Alesha Presley, said she has enjoyed watching her daughter learn important skills as a business owner.

“We’ve been doing Winnie L3mmies since 2022, and of course, I along with my parents, poured into it and supported it to get it off the ground,” she said. “But since it has been in operation, it has been able to renew itself as far as revenue. So her stock, everything that she keeps in stock, has been able to be in stock because of the business that she has and she’s very good about setting aside money for stock.”

At the last LaFayette Main Street Annual Meeting Williams received a Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and said she is proud to receive the award and the hard work she has done to build Winnies L3mmies.

“I was totally surprised,” she said. “I did not know that was coming. It is the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. I felt proud of myself because of what I have accomplished all the years that I have worked so hard setting up.”

For Presley, the award was a reflection of how Williams has grown as a business owner.

“It just filled my heart with so much joy, because I could see over the years the growth and the maturity in not just the business, but in her as well,” she said. “She has really grown as far as being able to present, talk and display her items, her different flavors. She has really grown in how to speak individually to the customers to help them find and identify the flavor of their choice or the best flavor that works for them.”

For more information, or to book Winnie’s L3mmies for an event, visit Winnie’s L3mmies on Facebook.

Addie’s Crazy Cones

Addie Moultrie also won a Young Entrepreneur of the Year award at the LaFayette Main Street Annual Meeting and owns Addie’s Crazy Cones. She was inspired to start her business as a way to raise money for missionaries.

“I went to my camp with my grandmother, and I want to raise money for missionaries, and I thought it would be a good idea, then it went really well,” she said. “I brought [a snow cone machine] home, and I just started, and I told Mrs. DeAnna, and she let me start setting up in LaFayette behind my parents’ food truck.”

Addie said she has grown her business to now have a food truck herself, and she has even received two small business grants, one from Auburn University for $1,000 and the other from LaFayette Main Street for $500.

“First, I had a table and a tent; it wasn’t much,” she said. “And then I went to Auburn University and competed against a bunch of adults to get a grant to build my business, and I won that.”

As Addie has grown her business, she has also added more sweet products to the menu.

“At first, I just did snow cones, and now I do freeze-dry candy,” she said. “Every once in a while, I also do coffee and hot chocolate, everything like that, and popcorn. And I was able to buy a freeze-dry machine.”

For Addie’s mom, Jessie Moultrie, she said watching her daughter grow to have the skills and confidence to manage Addie’s Crazy Cones herself has filled her with pride.

“We’ve kind of gone from her having to have somebody in there to help her, to where now she gets some of her friends, and they’ll run it completely by themselves,” she said. “So that’s really cool. So she’s been hired for a few little events, and so that’s neat, and we get to watch her shoot for and go for it.”

When she received a Young Entrepreneur of the Year award at the LaFayette Main Street Annual Meeting, Addie said she was proud of the skills she has developed and to stand next to her friend.

“It felt really good, especially getting it with my friend Winnie,” she said. “I have gotten better at counting money. I’m pretty good at that. I’m good at marketing, selling stuff and stepping out of my comfort zone.”

Jessie said she enjoyed watching the growth of Addie’s Crazy Cones, seeing Addie receive a Young Entrepreneur of the Year award and win her grants.

“It’s been really cool, really rewarding that she has done so well,” she said. “When she won her first grant, her first award, she did this sales pitch completely by herself, as well as answered the questions. And it was a five-minute sales pitch, and she did it at nine. So I was out of my comfort zone, and so was she. But I think there were like 70 people that competed, and there were 11 winners, and to watch her win that was very rewarding and really neat.”

For more information or to book Addie’s Crazy Cones for an event, visit Addie’s Crazy Cones on Facebook.