Let Them Eat Cake!
Leadership program aims to create the next generation of entrepreneurs to revitalize rural South Georgia.
By Jennifer Hafer
A First-place Flex Landon Breeden, Lowndes High School student and owner of First Line Mobile Detailing in Valdosta
Photos Courtesy Georgia FLEX (Julian Alexander)
This is a story about cakes. One is a proverbial cake that allows young entrepreneurs to create their dream jobs in their rural hometowns. The other cake is made from a gluten-free batter “because everyone deserves a piece of cake.”
The Georgia Foundational Leadership & Entrepreneurship Experience (FLEX) launched in 2020 when Executive Director Melissa Dark took the helm of the Fitzgerald-Ben Hill County Chamber of Commerce. It began as a concept to connect businesses with local college students.
“We had just gotten a college and career academy, which offers some unique pathways for students to learn skills and trades, and we really wanted our business community to be engaged with the school to help equip the workforce that they were wanting to see come out of the school,” Dark says. “Teachers needed to know more about what businesses needed from students, and businesses needed to know more about what students were doing in school, so we just wanted to bridge that gap and be a connector.”
Coming from an entrepreneurial background herself, Dark says she loves the idea of someone taking something they enjoy doing, that they’re passionate about, and turning that into a business. So, she pitched the idea of a “Shark Tank”-style
competition, including prize money, to the school for students attending the Fitzgerald High School College and Career Academy.
“The idea was for this not to be a kind of theoretical, ‘science project’ experience, but for students to really be able to start real businesses, make real products, sell real services, and make real money,” she says. “We felt like that experience would be a catalyst for them to engage more in the community, and to have an experience that would help them gain workforce skills that we knew business leaders were wanting to see in staff.”
Stopping the “Brain Drain”
The program is rooted in the idea that educating students on the rewards, sacrifices, and processes involved in establishing a small business will not only create prosperity but revitalize rural entrepreneurial ecosystems.
“This program gives students the chance to engage with the community in a way that they are able to see they can start their own business that they can build right here,” Dark says, “instead of feeling like they have to move somewhere else to have their dream job.”
“This program gives students the chance to engage with the community in a way that they are able to see they can start their own business that they can build right here instead of feeling like they have to move somewhere else to have their dream job.”
— Melissa Dark, Executive Director
Despite record-high employment numbers in early 2026, Georgia is experiencing a significant workforce crisis characterized by a severe shortage of skilled labor. While job growth remains strong, the demand for talent far outpaces supply, especially in rural areas.
“One of the problems that really cripples rural Georgia is a ‘brain drain’— that we have our best and brightest leaving for what they see as greener pastures,” Dark says. “We really want to help students be endeared to their local community, and also deeply connected and understand the resources that are available for them here.”
The first year of FLEX proved so successful, one program became two programs, and two programs became the foundation for Georgia FLEX, a statewide competition supporting young entrepreneurs across South Georgia. This year, 19 communities participated in the program and 17 student businesses were represented at state finals.
“At first, we thought that success looked like engaging these students in Fitzgerald, and the first year it was more successful than we imagined,” Dark says. “We saw that students were excited and motivated in a way we hadn’t anticipated.
“They learned more than we anticipated and business leaders in our community were more excited than we anticipated. Other communities saw the success that we had, and another community asked if they could implement the program for them as well,” says Dark.
Following the successful implementation of the program in a second community, Dark says her thoughts turned to scalability. “We were able to effectively package the program and recreate the magic of the first year,” she says. “It worked well and we gained proof of concept. After that second year we looked to create Georgia FLEX.”
‘Because everyone deserves a piece of cake’
In high school, Chloe Paulk started baking and decorating cakes in her mother’s kitchen to sell to friends and neighbors. It was a hobby she enjoyed, she says, not thinking she would continue the endeavor after graduation. All of that changed after Paulk competed in the finals of FLEX in 2022, the year before it became a statewide program.
“I had a business, but I used that term very loosely before FLEX,” she says. “It was just there. FLEX was the first time I could see that my hobby could be a viable business.”
Through FLEX, Paulk learned to scale her business quickly by offering a “Cake of the Week” and a monthly subscription service. At its height, Paulk was selling 35-40 subscriptions while participating in FLEX. “I didn’t see a clear path for the business after graduating other than maybe opening a bakery, but that wasn’t something I was interested in doing,” she says. “FLEX really lit the spark in me that entrepreneurship could be a viable path for my future.”
The turning point, Paulk says, was the ability to think creatively — a skill she learned through FLEX. The program also provided her the ability to effectively communicate and market herself and her business. She credits those skills with helping her get
into her “dream school” in college, she says. “I used those skills in my college interviews. I shared my business, my passion, and where I wanted to take it in the future. I was offered a full-ride scholarship to Mercer, and I credit FLEX with a lot of that.”
Paulk continued her baking business when she moved to Macon, selling her cakes in local coffee shops. But, as any good entrepreneur knows, the key to success is what comes next. “When I left Ocilla and moved to Macon, I knew I wanted to continue my business,” she says, “but the business changed.”
Today, Cake It With Chloe, with its motto “Because everyone deserves a piece of cake,” sells gluten-free cake mix online and in 25 retail locations (15 specialty stores and 10 Piggly Wiggly grocery stores across South Georgia). “I have a gluten allergy, and I come from a rural background where there were no gluten free options,” Paulk says. “I firmly believe that everyone deserves a piece of cake and a dietary restriction shouldn’t get in the way of that.”
Now a new graduate, Paulk is focusing on expanding her business with additional retail locations and cake mix flavors. “I competed four years ago, and I still see opportunities opening up four years later,” she says. “The benefits of participating in FLEX don’t stop when the confetti stops falling at the final competition.”
In the Driver’s Seat
A precursor to the Georgia FLEX program was a college competition started by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Chris Clark, the chamber’s president and CEO. Just like Georgia FLEX, the goal was to promote entrepreneurship and the skills that go along with it, but as a result of the pandemic, the program was discontinued.
“Usually, the focus is on big business and big announcements, but something like 97 percent of businesses in Georgia are small businesses,” Clark says. “They are really a driver of the state’s economy. If we want downtown to thrive, Main Street needs those businesses.”
After being invited to be a judge at the first FLEX competition in Fitzgerald, Clark, a native of Fitzgerald, was “blown away,” he says. “I thought, ‘this shouldn’t just be a local thing.’ And when they decided they wanted to take it statewide, we took them under our umbrella and made them an affiliate. We’ve been there since the beginning.”
In addition to creating entrepreneurs and more small businesses, the skills students learn from participation in Georgia FLEX are critical to their future success, no matter their path, Clark says. “The skills that they develop they will use for the rest of their lives,” he says. “We spend a lot of time on workforce development and employers continue to tell us job candidates lack some of those real-world experience skills like being a self starter and time management. Georgia FLEX is a direct vehicle to help students obtain those skills they are going to need.”
Each local competition has its own judges, including local entrepreneurs and representatives of the Small Business Development Center. Whether judge or advisor, these volunteers become mentors to the participants, Clark says, noting it’s the job of the local chamber to find them. “Our role is to help prioritize this as a workforce development tool and move into as many schools and communities as possible.”
Developing a leadership steering committee that’s going to direct the program at the local level is the secret sauce to the success of Georgia FLEX, Dark says. “It’s not just a school program,” she says. “It needs to be run by a community organization like your chamber of commerce.
“We feel like we have learned that FLEX is an effective way to not only engage students for entrepreneurship and workforce development, but it is also a way to activate communities in a way other programs may not.”
