Food Truck Started By Kids Adopted Out Of Foster Care Aims To Help Those In Foster Care
Aug 15, 2019, 1:43 PM | Updated: 1:55 pm
LEHI, Utah — On a Wednesday night when a long line of food trucks stretched along the edge of Wines Park, 10-year-old Max Baron politely approached a woman sitting at a pavilion and gave her another option to consider.
“So, we’re trying to raise money for foster care kids to get adopted because we were adopted through foster care,” he said, baring a basket of cupcakes. “We’re doing it with this $10 cupcake box and $2 brownie and cookie bar.”
Not far away stood the purple food truck, Cups & Cakes —a food truck business he and his siblings started with the assistance of their foster parents, Brittany and Josh Baron, with the goal of helping children who faced the same situation he once did.
“My birth mom passed away when I was like 7, I think, and I don’t know when my birth dad passed away,” Max said. “If I didn’t get adopted with this family, then that’d be bad.”
The Barons, who have adopted 7 children through foster care, said they acquired the truck at the end of May, after the kids initially hatched the idea last year.
“They started the business to raise money for their futures—like their colleges, their missions and things—and then they give 10 percent back to a foster care foundation,” Brittany Baron explained to a customer.
She said taking part in the business has also helped the children with their personal development.
“Some of them had kind of rough childhoods, and so no matter how many times I would tell them ‘you’re not going to go back to homeless shelters, you can sleep on our couch—you know, the worst case scenario—it just was not relieving their anxiety at all,” Baron said. “We went this direction instead and it seemed to help a lot. It’s built their confidence and gave them good business skills.”
Baron said the truck has also added to the community discussion of foster care and adoption, and she’s grateful for the community support it has received.
“I think that people are really supportive of these kids who are trying to do something good and trying to raise money for their own futures—because they work really hard,” she said. “It just really warms my heart when I can see their self-esteem growing and when I can see that they feel like they’re being successful.
