Accion
Sibylicious Cupcake Cafe
Hammond, IN
We couldn’t do our work without your partnership. With support from the Knight Foundation Fund, Accion is able to help strengthen the communities of Northwest Indiana, support families, and empower clients like Sibyl Peeples, of Hammond, IN, through coaching and access to capital.
For the health of her marriage, Sibyl Peeples told her husband to stop consorting with the other woman. “I told him he had to divorce Little Debbie,” Sibyl said, referring to the legendary maker of snack cakes. “I was trying to educate him on the dangers of trans fats.”
Soon enough, Sibyl realized she had a great product on her hands. Working in the insurance business, she started selling her cupcakes to co-workers, then at farmers markets, and eventually at catered events. “The cupcakes worked,” she says. “I could always find a customer.” These days, customers find Sibyl at Sibylicious, the Northwest Indiana bakery she opened in 2014 with a $7,000 loan from Accion. Many of her cupcakes include pie fillings—a twist on a timeless dessert that exemplifies the creativity she cultivated as a formerly single mother raising three hungry boys.
“I was taught in the kitchen of necessity,” she says. “Especially having boys, it’s a major job to keep them full and healthy.” Of course, balancing parenthood and a professional life by herself was a sometimes grueling challenge, but Sibyl’s attitude remained as healthy as the all-natural ingredients in her baking.
But her husband, Melvin, coveted sweet things with his coffee, and Little Debbie was a tough habit to break. So Sibyl decided to one-up her competition by baking for Melvin herself. She used natural ingredients and experimented with different varieties of cupcakes.
“I give a lot of credit to the struggle—to trying to manage career, parenting and a budget,” she says, noting that perseverance taught her “not to give in.” And the success that she’s experienced as baker has been the epitome of a sweet reward.