From a young age, Junior Sophia Yoder has “always loved baking”. After spending countless hours baking with her grandma when she was younger, Yoder began experimenting more with baking as she got older. What had been a hobby for Yoder soon became monetized as she began selling her desserts at an affordable price.  

“Baking is something I do to de-stress, and it’s also just a fun hobby. I figured selling the things I bake would be a great way to both do something that I love as well as help raise money for charities,” Yoder said. “I price things primarily based on how much the ingredients used to make them cost. Since I’m still very much an amateur, I don’t want to overprice anything. 50% of what is charged for something goes towards charity and usually all the rest goes towards ingredients.”

Donating to charities has become a staple of Yoder’s business. With human rights movements such as Black Lives Matter making headway, Yoder uses her voice to speak out on injustices and contribute to different causes. 

“I’ve always been invested in social justice, this summer more so than ever with the events going on. Since I’m underage there’s many things I can’t do, like vote, so I figured donating money would be a great way for me to try and help fight injustice,” Yoder said.

As a way to get more publicity, Yoder created sophias_baking_addiction, an Instagram account used to promote and showcase her desserts as well as inform her followers of organizations. Here, her followers have watched the baker’s business grow and occasionally play a part in the donating process, as she allows them to vote in polls on what organization she should donate the profits to. After accumulating 200 dollars, Yoder’s first donation went to The Loveland Foundation followed by another 267 dollar donation towards The Innocence Project. Her most recent poll determined that the next donation will be going to The Trevor Project. 

“The first charity, The Loveland Foundation, I chose myself based off of interest. I’ve been following the organization and it’s creator for a long time and figured it would be a great place for my first donation,” Yoder said. “For the next two charities I did a bunch of research and found a few organizations that helped causes I’m passionate about. Then, I let the followers on my Instagram page choose which one they were most interested in.”

As well as donating to charities, Yoder has found raising awareness and being vocal crucial for reform. In order to do so, it starts with being educated. 

“Young people don’t stay young. Our generation is going to be the next wave of leaders, businesspeople, teachers, and most importantly—voters,” Yoder said. “I think that staying educated about the things going on in our world is extremely important because eventually we’ll be the people making decisions for the future of our country. Ignorance and apathy are very dangerous factors when it comes to politics which is why I think all young people need to be vocal or at the very least informed about what’s going on.”