Student Sells Sweets to Fund Future
Vivienne Cordrey, 29
Staff Writer
Kaitlyn Scott is a sophomore at Cape Henlopen High School who moved here from Central Coast, Australia in 2025. Due to the current Visa that she is on, she has been unable to get a job and support her future needs: to get a car and attend college. Over the summer of 2025, while other students were working summer jobs, Kaitlyn was further developing her baking skill.
She started baking during Covid “as an outlet for when I was upset about my grades or needed to block out the world.” Over time the coping mechanism turned into a hobby. “One can only eat so many cookies for herself so I started giving them out and it made me happy seeing others happy with my sweet treats.”
With Kaitlyn being completely self taught, she has had many trial and error moments “The hardest thing was trying to balance the ingredients so it was the right texture without compromising the overall flavor.” Once she mastered the recipes and had friends taste test them with positive reviews, they encouraged her to start a business of her own. Kait Bakes launched early February 2026 and was a hit, nearly selling out the first day. Her new cookie making enterprise allowed her to make the income that she was missing to support her future goals.
As Kait Bakes grew so did support from her friends, they were impressed with her entrepreneurial leadership. Ms. Katie, a CHHS hall monitor says “Starting a business builds such a unique skill set for high school students to carry on into their post-secondary plans. You learn time management, money, communication and organization skills.”
With starting her new business Kaitlyn had to come up with a pricing model, after a lot of thought she decided to price individual cookies at three dollars so her business can be more affordable for students. Ashlyn Paynko, one of Kaitlyn’s best friends and most frequent buyers says “I think it’s pretty fair. You get a pretty decent sized cookie for only a few bucks.”
Kaitlyn has a wide variety of cookie flavors to appeal to people’s broad spectrum of taste. Some fan favorites include: Ferrero Rocher, Biscoff Cookie and S’mores. Lily McCann, another frequent buyer, says “I'm excited about trying the new Blueberry Muffin ones, but I would say I like the Matcha ones best.”
Kaitlyn has already grown the business so much in just 3 months and is already looking to expand and experiment with new recipes. Ms. Katie said, “I’ve seen more products around. It’s encouraging to see her trying new things and those new things are still really yummy.”
She is not only thinking about expanding products but how to market them. “There’s opportunities within Cape where Kaitlyn could partner with clubs and do a fundraiser where she could make cookies for theater concessions,” she offered. Lily suggested, “I think she should make posters and flyers and put them up around the school, or she could do a bake sale for the track team.” Ashlyn added a great way to support Kaitlyn's business is by reposting Kait Bakes posts on instagram.
Creating Kait bakes allowed Kaitlyn to make money, do something she’s passionate about, learn new skills and get on the path to success as she further develops the business.
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