Culinary Talent Receives $10,000 for Business: ‘They Helped Me Keep the Faith’

Greater Washington Urban League’s (Washington, DC) By Our Hands hosted an award ceremony to grant eight culinary talents $10,000 to help sustain their businesses amid a rocky economy on Sept. 21. 

The event had an overarching message to attendees and business owners: “We are strong together.”

The program leader drilled down several times how important it is for businesses to have communal support, translating into societal change.

“When we sustain our food business, we sustain our community in so many ways,” Furard Tate, director of the Entrepreneurship Center at the Greater Washington Urban League, told The Washington Informer. “It brings us together and helps us to elevate so that we can change the world.”

Besides the encouraging words from the leader, many recipients who received the money did so with tears in their eyes. 

Oluwatoyin Pyne, the owner of Power Foods, who provides on-the-go healthy treats, praised the nonprofit for its unwavering support when she needed it the most.

“It takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to start a business. I couldn’t get with it when they kept saying ‘we’re family,’ but as you go through some things, through the class and you have to really find yourself, they encouraged me many times when I was not sure. They helped me to keep the faith,” Pyne said during her acceptance speech.

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