You can’t keep a good woman down. Neither cancer nor a difficult divorce was going to prevent Kyri Mosley, PhD, from pursuing her dream. In 2021, she officially traded in her scrubs for an apron.

It was a dream that started a decade prior. That is when she decided to send cookies to troops overseas.

“I had just gone through a divorce,” she explained. “I was feeling completely abandoned. I spoke to my then 12-year-old son about the sacrifices the troops were making in Iraq and Afghanistan. I told him I imagined they must feel abandoned so far away from their families. I asked if he would like to help bake cookies for them, and he agreed. This was the beginning of us not only serving soldiers but also serving nurses, teachers, firefighters and police officers.”

Ten years later, in October 2019, Mosley was diagnosed with stage 4 Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare, cancerous tumor that forms in bone or soft tissue. Despite her illness, baking was never far from mind. Once the cancer was in remission, she was convinced to make baking her full-time profession.

“As a gesture of my gratitude, I presented members of the clinical team with ‘thank you’ gifts of cookies,” she said. “I mailed some and personally delivered others. I heard, ‘Why aren’t you selling these?’ My sister told me I should be baking and selling my cookies for a living. I contacted my son and daughter and told them about my desire to start baking again. They gave me their blessings.”

Launching a business in the baking industry as a Black woman has not been easy, according to Mosley. But lack of access to capital and funding wasn’t going to prevent her from achieving her goal.

“I have found it extremely difficult to obtain funding as a consumer packaged goods (CPG) product,” Mosley explained. “It is nearly impossible to secure funding from traditional financial institutions. In addition, we have found most angel investors prefer to invest in technology and not CPG, regardless of the quality of the product. We've worked very hard to secure partnerships with Hyatt, Marriott, PGA, Nike and Hudson News. But it has been a challenge to find those who want to invest.”

The company produces cookies in 10 flavors, including Chocolate Chunk, Chocolate Chunk with Walnuts, Oatmeal Cran-Raisin, Zebra Macadamia, The Brooklyn (a nod to her home state of New York) and The Georgia Pecan Turtle (the company is based in Dallas, Ga.). Kyri’s Kookies also offers four plant-based varieties: Chocolate Chunk, Chocolate Chunk with Pecan, Oatmeal Lemon Cranberry Gluten-Free and Peanut Butter Gluten-Free. The company uses organic ingredients; its cookies are made without flour or white sugar.

For Mosley, the dream continues.

“We are starting an equity crowdfunding campaign,” she explained. “We want to raise funding to build a larger facility so we can increase our dough distribution across multiple brands.”

Kyri’s Kookies are sold in Hyatt hotels across the United States and Hudson News outlets at Hartfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. In addition, the cookies are available at the company’s lone brick and mortar store in Dallas or online at www.kyriskookies.com.