A teenage boy in Houston, Texas, has taken his love of baking and turned it into a modest business in an effort to help his mother pay off her medical bills.
According to People , 14-year-old Elijah Cossio spends every night after school selling his baked goods so that he might help ease his mom’s financial burden.
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For the last few years, Cossio’s mornings have began at at 5 a.m. when he wakes up and starts baking.
Before school even starts, the teen is in his kitchen whipping up some delicious homemade treats, and once classes are done for the day, he’s stationed behind a table ready to sell his baked goods to classmates, parents, and community members.
Although Cossio has always loved baking, he never expected to turn his hobby into a financial necessity.
On his GoFundMe page, the teen explains that his mom almost died after she ended up in the hospital for three months with a serious bacterial infection in 2017. Since then, the family has been struggling to pay her medical bills.
“It spiraled out from there,” his mom, Tina Hernandez, told People . “I had to undergo five surgeries and three blood transfusions and I died for 14 minutes after the first surgery… I don’t remember those three months of my life.”
Because his mom was in the hospital and was unable to go to work, Cossio said he knew he had to step up in order to support his family.
“I remembered how much my mom taught me with baking so I decided to step up,” he explained. “I started grinding and baking daily so that I can go store to store to sell and raise money.”
At that point, the teen had already been selling his baked goods on the weekends, but now he began selling them after school, too.
Some of Cossio’s delicious treats include cupcakes, cheesecakes, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies.
Hernandez estimates that her son has made around $60-150 every single day from selling his treats for the last two and a half years, and he makes even more on weekends.
“I’ve always pushed my kids [and told them] there’s nothing you can’t do,” she explained. “I said, ‘All you gotta do is find something you’re good at and try it!'”
Thousands of people have supported Cossio without buying his desserts by donating through various fundraisers.
His latest GoFundMe campaign, which was created just four days ago, well-surpassed its goal of $100 and has currently raised over $12,650.
Now that his mom is doing better, Cossio has set his sights on his future and you can bet it’s going to include lots of baking.
As he wrote online, “Now that my mom is doing better I found a passion. I want to continue to help out as well as save money to better myself.”
He plans on becoming an engineer in the Army and would also like to attend culinary school in the hopes of one day opening his own cupcake truck.
“There’s more to life than just sitting and playing games,” Cossio told ABC13 . “I was raised to go get and I went and got it.”
h/t: People
