GREENSBORO, N.C. — A senior at North Carolina A&T State University is setting the bar high by reaching her goals and climbing higher heights.
Simone Lacewell started mobile health food restaurant Miki Bowls, LLC after seeing a need at her college campus and just took a leap of faith by deciding to purchase her very own food truck.
“I started Miki Bowls because I noticed there was a shortage of fresh fruit on campus, especially to those of us who didn’t have cars to drive off-campus and get groceries, so I decided I would be the one to make fruit available,” Lacewell said. “It was just getting very frustrating for me; I knew I wasn’t the only person on campus that wanted good fruit.”
She ended up purchasing the food truck early this month.
“I was planning to open my food truck in April 2020, but COVID happened, and God had a different plan for me,” Lacewell said.
Her dreams of becoming an entrepreneur started from a young age but didn’t exactly align with what she sells today.
“When I was in high school. I wanted to open a bakery, I wasn’t going to go to college, my mom was like, why don’t you go to school, figure things out, and then if you still want to open the bakery when you graduate, you can,” Lacewell said.
PHOTOS: 22-year-old entrepreneur, senior at NC A&T reaching goals, purchases very own food truck
The 22-year-old said she’s faced days that often make her want to give up.
“I have days when I cry, and I want to quit, I want to park the truck and just deal with it another day,” Lacewell said. “People say ‘I want to be an entrepreneur, ‘I want to be my own boss’, but they don’t see how much really goes into it.”
The business student turned entrepreneur serves up several products including sweet mango juice to multiple fruit bowls equipped with pineapples, berries, strawberries, watermelon and more.
She coins her faith as a motivating factor and offers it as positive advice to others.
“Do what you can, stay motivated, pray, that’s the main thing that will really get you through this,” Lacewell said.
And as far as her childhood dream goes?
“I’m definitely going to open my bakery at one point and keep doing what I’m doing,” she said. “This is just the beginning.”
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