{"id":773425,"date":"2013-09-23T14:59:46","date_gmt":"2013-09-23T14:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/blog\/general\/monique-armstrong\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T12:46:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:46:06","slug":"monique-armstrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/blog\/impact-spotlight\/monique-armstrong\/","title":{"rendered":"My Story: Monique Armstrong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"\/blog\/impact-spotlight\/monique-armstrong\/attachment\/monique-150-l\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27942\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-27942\" src=\"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Monique-150-L.jpg\" alt=\"Monique Armstrong\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I decided to start my cookie business, <a href=\"http:\/\/mlagourmet.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MLA Gourmet<\/a>, because I&#8217;ve been baking all my life. I started doing corporate gifts at Christmastime. I did that for several years, and then I entered into the Goodwill of North Georgia microenterprise program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I learned a lot about financial issues and marketing. The teachers and instructors were very supportive and knowledgeable. When I first started, one of my concerns was that since I&#8217;m not very outgoing, I would not be able to go out and sell my cookies. Going through the program and doing the planning has given me a lot of confidence and helped me to really believe that I could make a real business out of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The essence\u00a0of my business is quality. I also want to do something different, so I have created unique recipes. I have cookies for grown-ups that are liquor infused, such as an absinthe chocolate chip and rum cherry chocolate chip. I want them to always be eaten fresh, and that\u2019s one of the reasons why I started producing cookie dough. I know that when people buy the cookie dough, they\u2019re going to bake them and eat them right away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I just started selling my cookies here at the Whole Foods locally and in Atlanta. I\u2019m hoping to expand to every Whole Foods. Whenever I haven\u2019t been a hundred percent sure that I can do this, I have just been pulled back in and had Goodwill to support me. It\u2019s been just a blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Check out Monique&#8217;s cookie offerings at <a href=\"http:\/\/mlagourmet.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MLAGourmet.com<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"\/blog\/impact-spotlight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hear more stories<\/a> from people like Monique.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Through Goodwill&#8217;s microenterprise program, Monique found the encouragement and training she needed to launch her own cookie company, MLA Gourmet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":773292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-773425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773426,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773425\/revisions\/773426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodwill.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}