Food Entreprenuers With Ties to the Disabled Community Make a Difference

Photograph by Chris von Holle

M ost days, you’re likely to find Maggie Neumann of Maggie’s Marvelous Mini Cheesecakes in her Blue Ash kitchen, filling up a muffin tin with her creatively flavored mini cheesecakes—possibly triple berry, chocolate peanut butter, or her most popular flavor, key lime. “The key is to find a base recipe and give it your own spin,” she says. The 25-year-old baker works out of her home, in part because commercial kitchens rarely provide the accessibility she needs.

Neumann, who has spina bifida, uses a wheelchair to get around, which means just getting in the door of many commercial bakeries can be challenging. But her thriving bake-from-home business, which she runs with some help from her mom Michelle, allows her to pursue her lifelong passion.

Photograph courtesy Maggie Neumann

“I always wanted to bake but never thought I could, so I forged my own path and figured out a way to do it,” she explains. This sentiment aligns with her motto, stated on her bakery’s website: “She believed she could, so she did.”

Maggie’s Marvelous Mini Cheesecakes started in 2020 with a baby shower for a former high school teacher and has steadily grown since. Weddings, showers, and fund-raisers account for a lot of the business, but you can also find Neumann and her mini cheesecakes at local festivals and events.

Photograph courtesy Maggie Neumann

She’s gotten so busy, in fact, that she now uses interns from Sycamore Community Schools’ post-high school transition program for students with disabilities to help fold boxes, crush graham crackers, do dishes, make whipped cream, and perform other essential tasks. A 2018 graduate of Sycamore High School, Neumann went through the program herself. Now, she’s happy to be in a position to give back.

For Loveland’s Joel Wegener, Special Neat Treats has always been about giving back. Wegener, a fund-raiser by day, has two children with developmental delays. Looking for a way to provide onsite job training for his daughter Mary and son Josh, he connected with a family in Indiana who was selling an ice cream truck that they had operated with their special needs children. In 2021, Wegener bought the truck.

Photograph by Chris von Holle

He hits the streets—often with one of his kids manning the window—every spring, selling frozen treats throughout Greater Cincinnati until the end of summer. Recently, Special Neat Treats showed up at a staff appreciation event at the Thomas A. Wildey School (a Clermont County school serving students with disabilities), firecracker popsicles and ice cream sandwiches in tow.

He recently purchased a second ice cream truck for his growing business. Wegener’s wife and one of his other daughters (he has 10 children total) occasionally help with the driving, so the second truck will allow them to hit even more neighborhoods and events.

And he doesn’t plan to give up driving anytime soon. Much like eating ice cream, driving the truck can be therapeutic. “When I view the world through the screen of my ice cream truck, I think, This is the world I want to see, not the world I see through my TV screen. ”

Speaking of ice cream, if you’ve been to Graeter’s recently, you might have seen a package of dog treats from Brewhaus Bakery & Dog Bones . The business is the brainchild of Lisa Graham, who bakes out of a commercial kitchen in Mt. Washington. To make her dog treats, she uses spent grains—malted barley that has had its liquid removed to make beer—but still retains much of its nutrients. Brewhaus also employees and trains people with disabilities who are matched with the bakery through various local transitional programs.

Photograph by Chris von Holle

At first, Brewhaus worked with New Richmond High School’s transitional program, which Graham’s daughter Natalie completed. Now, the busy bakery works with dozens of local school districts, including Cincinnati Public Schools. On any given week, Brewhaus employs 13 paid part-time employees. As a nonprofit, all of Brewhaus’s sales support its job training program. The goal is not only for Brewhaus employees to learn valuable life and career skills, but to make a professional product they can be proud of.

The Point Arc of Northern Kentucky has a similar goal. The organization has been serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities since its founding in 1972. For vocational training, The Point Arc operates Point Perk Coffee in Covington and ZELS Pretzels.

Photograph courtesy Point Perk Coffee Shop

ZELS hires employees with developmental disabilities to season and sell its pretzels, which are baked in Latonia. Here, in a truly collaborative effort, employees also help come up with new seasoning recipes. The most popular flavors right now are “spicy,” “cinnamon sugar,” and “bourbon.” This is Kentucky, after all.

Point Perk began as a restaurant and buffet but transitioned to a coffee shop a few years ago. After shutting down for some recent renovations, the newly reopened Point Perk sells Honduran coffee from United Grounds, chicken salad from Chicken Salad Chick, and pastries from Riverside Market. According to Leslie Vickers, Point Arc’s Vice President of Enterprises, employees at the coffee shop do everything from grinding beans to making coffee to working the register.

Photograph courtesy Point Perk Coffee Shop

She tells a story of one employee who thought she could only wash windows and tables. “The other day when I walked into the coffee shop, she said, ‘I’m so excited I could cry. I made my first cup of coffee today!’ ”

Much like Wegener’s ice cream truck, I suspect the view from behind the coffee counter is pretty good, too.

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