\n
When I was 15, my mom Cathy \u2014 \u201cthe Cookie Lady\u201d \u2014 was fired from Beller\u2019s Bakery for giving leftover muffins to a homeless veteran. Her new boss, Derek, called it theft<\/em>. She came home in tears, saying, \u201cI have more good in me than he has power.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n A decade later, I founded a food-tech company that partners with bakeries to donate surplus food. While hiring, Derek\u2019s resume landed on my desk. He didn\u2019t recognize me. In the interview, he even bragged about firing \u201can older woman\u201d<\/em> for giving away baked goods.<\/p>\n I told him: \u201cThat older woman was my mother.\u201d<\/em> His smirk vanished. I ended the interview: \u201cNo job here \u2014 but a shelter could use someone who knows day-old muffins.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n When I called Mom, she laughed softly. \u201cYou didn\u2019t do it for me,\u201d<\/em> she said. \u201cYou did it for the kid who saw his mom cry.\u201d<\/em> She was right. Today, she leads our outreach team \u2014 still handing out bread with the same gentle smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was 15, my mom Cathy \u2014 \u201cthe Cookie Lady\u201d \u2014 was fired from Beller\u2019s Bakery for giving leftover muffins to a homeless veteran. Her new boss, Derek, called it theft. She came home in tears, saying, \u201cI have more good in me than he has power.\u201d A decade later, I founded a food-tech …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6729,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6727\/revisions\/6729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildwondertube.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}