East Memphis bakery benefits human trafficking victims

For Sweet Lala's Bakery in East Memphis, the secret ingredient is philanthropy.

Owner Lauren Young said that she has been baking and sharing cookies for as long as she can remember. After having her car stolen while pregnant, she decided she wanted to make a positive change around the city.

“It kind of rattled me for a while and it made me have a restless energy that there was some kind of greater purpose I could use in my life,” Young said.

For four years, Young said that Sweet Lala's focused on training and employing young people as they went through juvenile court.

“Baking became a bit of my therapy,” she said. “I found out about kids downtown that were coming through the juvenile court system and having trouble finding jobs once they graduated from their programs.”

Young eventually decided she wanted to grow her business and team up with other organizations aimed at doing good. Some of her new partnerships include Thistle and Bee Enterprises and A Way Out Ministries.

“Both work with women coming out of human trafficking and have wraparound support programs that are about two years in length,” she said.

Young said that she periodically employs women employed in those programs and sells products intended to raise funds for the groups. An entire section of her store is dedicated to products with missions from helping human trafficking victims to employing people with disabilities and more.

“When we buy their products, we are supplying program dollars directly to them,” she said.

Young wants the products she sells to have a positive impact, whether those products are pottery, home decor, cookies or cakes.

“Baking is a metaphor for me. You kind of go through the fire. There is a lot of suffering in life across the world,” she said. “The world is messy, but you can make this beautiful product out of unlike things.”

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