Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennie Groff.
Hi Jennie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
In 2008, friends of ours had the idea of making Dutch Stroopwafels, a yummy European treat, (a cinnamon waffle with a homemade caramel in the center best rewarmed on top of your favorite hot beverage) in order to provide meaningful employment for our resettled refugee friends in Lancaster City. Hearing the idea was intriguing since my husband Jonathan’s family has been making homemade chocolates in the Lancaster area for decades! In 2010, Jonathan and I took our friend’s Stroopie recipe and dream and started developing the concept.
We started with what we had in our hands…our families candy shoppe. We didn’t know all the details of how it would work, but we were willing to dream and trust God for the growth and impact we were hoping to have. We started wholesaling our Stroopies…primarily to local coffee shops, and grocery stores. Our families candy business, Groff’s Candies, is about 15 minutes from Lancaster City, hidden in the corn fields of Millersville. It was a perfect place to launch and product test our idea, but we were really hoping and praying that that we could publicly launch in Lancaster City when the time was right! In 2016 we purchased and renovated our first brick and mortar shop in Lancaster City- the Lancaster Sweet Shoppe! It was an answer to prayer as it was easily walkable for our employees, and it provided a fresh, warm Stroopie smell in the middle of a city! Because Lancaster City is known for its history of welcoming all people, launching the Stroopie business in Lancaster was the perfect fit! Our family also lives in the city! So, it was the perfect fit!
At the Lancaster Sweet Shoppe, we feature our signature Stroopies, our families homemade chocolates, our own premium handcrafted ice cream, and are in-house roasted coffee!
We are grateful to our friends, Ed & Dan, for having this creative idea, to God for giving us the wisdom to know how to help the beautiful seed of an idea grow, and to Lancaster City for embracing us, Stroopies, and the amazing women on our team from around the world whose new home is Lancaster!
When did your heart for refugees begin and what draws you to serve them?
Jonathan and I both grew up in families and churches who welcomed refugees coming from around the world to their new home in Lancaster! I guess you could say this idea of welcome is in our DNA as well as within Lancaster soil with both of our families’ generations coming here as refugees. In our young adult years, God stirred our hearts to consider what life would look like if we would intentionally position ourselves to live in a neighborhood different from the one we grew up in. This opened up doors in 1999 to remodel a condemned crack house on the corner of Manor and Filbert Streets in Lancaster City and turn it into a prayer house. Living and raising our kids in this Lancaster City neighborhood for the last 25 years has shaped us in many profound ways, and we have learned so much from our very diverse neighborhood who have loved us well. I like to refer to our neighborhood as our “people garden” where it has been a privilege to have the nations of the world as our neighbors.
Although refugees have always been welcomed in Lancaster, in 2008, we noticed that a lot of resettled refugees started pouring into our rental units we were rehabbing for affordable housing. We also started noticing, especially for the moms, that it was harder to get out there, learn the language, and find community in their new home. I, in particular, as a young mom at the time, was intrigued how the workplace could become a community if we planned well and made space for it! To see Stroopies become a nurturing space for resettled refugee women whose new home is Lancaster has been a dream come true! These women are full of gratitude, resilience, courage, and truly are my heroes. It is my deepest privilege to have them as teammates and friends!
How has it changed you guys as being business owners caring for a group of refugee women? How have they impacted you?
While I have my associates degree on paper, I have really gotten my college degree, maybe even my doctorate, in having the privilege of a lifetime developing Stroopies, Inc. with my husband, Jonathan. As previously mentioned, each and every woman on our team is my hero! I try every day to learn from my team and understand what their secret sauce is. They have endured so much hardship, including many being separated from their extended families and have every reason to be bitter. Yet, they show up every day, ready to work hard with joy, and make the most of the opportunities they and their families now have. They share what they have without reserve and have helped us shape the culture and community at Stroopies.
A favorite memory of mine comes from early on during a lunch break. I got ready to eat the boring peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had made, and it was clear what we brought for lunch that day would be shared, even if it was boring and not exciting. I remember they took my boring peanut butter jelly sandwich, cut it up, and put it out on the table to share. To this day, what is brought for lunch is shared with each other, and it is a perfect picture to me of the culture at Stroopies- you belong at the table, and what you bring will be valued and celebrated! The women challenge me to think about how we each can holistically thrive as we share what we each have in our hands.
What is your favorite part about the company?
I have always carried a heart for business! To see the engine of this for profit social enterprise business be able to work and create this opportunity for the women on my team is really beautiful and something that I treasure.
What would you love to see happen in the next 5 years for Stroopies and the Lancaster Sweet Shoppe?
I would love to take what we now have in our hands, providing work for 23 women in Lancaster City, and scale and grow it to provide more opportunities for the 75 resettled refugee women on our waiting list. I spend a lot of time dreaming and praying about how that could happen, and although not all the details are clear, we do know we are to continue growing out our product catalog and work at launching our products to more retailers across the US. No matter what, we want to be faithful to nurture what we currently have in our hands, trusting that multiplication can happen even in ways we were not anticipating!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In the years between 2010 and 2015 we worked to see if roots would form around the Stroopie seeds so that they could grow…and most importantly remained committed to nurture the growth of our children. It felt clear to us that the Stroopie seeds that had been given to us could only grow as fast as what was good for our family.
Also…it was not immediately clear if the Stroopie seeds were growing. It seemed extremely slow…the growth (if it was happening) was much slower than what we were even comfortable with at times. It seemed to us as we prayed and worked hard, that God was not interested in fast growth, but more interested that what we were creating together was sustainable for the long run…and that our family was not sacrificed in the process.
It seemed as well that when we were discouraged and wondering if this Stroopie seed could ever get traction and grow that God would show us that there was potential…and encourage us to not give up. One of the interesting things that was happening was that, although we had a couple of local accounts, there seemed to be an attraction to our product in bigger cities where people who had traveled to Europe knew what the Stroopie product was. It seemed like our accounts were bigger outside of our home community in Lancaster…which is not typically the way it works when launching a product.
As always, we often grow just as much from the things that don’t go as planned, as the things that do! I guess that is how we grow stronger. The season of COVID was an example of that. Although, we would have never chosen that season…the forced stop, helped us in many ways. Sometimes, it is hard to make good decisions when you are running a million miles an hour. To have the gift of the time to step back, helped us to make a clear plan going forward.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
The Lancaster Sweet Shoppe is home to Stroopies, Inc. I am most proud of this arm of the business…Stroopies, Inc. is a for profit social enterprise that was founded to provide meaningful employment for resettled refugee women while making yummy stroopwafel cookies! We have an amazing employee care team on our staff that provides English classes and life coaching as part of the paid work day! The women make approximately 15,000 Stroopies a week at the Lancaster Sweet Shoppe and our working center space (a few block from the Lancaster Sweet Shoppe). These Stroopies get wholesaled all across the US, and of course In our shoppe!! I love that beautiful women can receive help and care through meaningful employment in our workplace!! Lancaster City has been our biggest fans and our community has been a gift at every turn in our business journey!!
How do you think about luck?
I have been thinking a bit about this…is it luck, or does God just knew how our lives fit together, sometimes even better than what we do!! I did a bit of writing about this recently… see below!
By the end of 2014, it was starting to be clear that our days making stroopies out at Groff’’s Candies would soon be coming to an end. Our family was so gracious in renting us space…but we were starting to grow and although they never told us directly, “we were getting in the way.”
🙂
It had been our hope to move the business into the city…and our confidence was now stronger that Stroopies were marketable in the states. Still, jumping into our own space seemed like a big step.
We thought that perhaps doors were opening for us to buy a market stand at Central Market in Lancaster City. We had gotten to know a friendly couple who sold our stroopies for us at their market stand. They had heard about our success making stroopies fresh at the German Christmas Market and it got them thinking…could we come make fresh Stroopies at the market when there were lots of people there on Saturday mornings. We got permission from the fire marshall, and the market customers loved it. At least one Saturday a month we would go make fresh warm Stroopies, and hand out samples from our friend’s stand. Customers would buy a fresh warm Stroopie…and then take packs along home with them.
It was working well…so well in fact, that our new friends at the stand offered that we just buy their stand and roll out our Stroopie business plan from there. They were ready to move on to new endeavors, and the plan to sell to us seemed perfect. On the very weekend we were going to sign papers to buy the stand…we got word from the market that they were no longer okay with us making Stroopies on-site. It was an obvious closed door, because our whole business plan was contingent on being able to make fresh warm stroopies.
Although disappointed…it made us pause again, “selah.” Somehow we knew the timing of the closed door was not a coincidence and that there was something better for us.
In early 2015, I read a newspaper article about how Assets, a local nonprofit that helped entrepreneurs, was hosting a local business competition for social enterprise businesses (think Shark Tank!! ). I was intrigued and without too much thought… entered Stroopies into the class/competition. The idea was that I would go through a class with other local social enterprises and work on a pitch that would be presented to a panel of judges and a live audience in the fall of 2015. I did not realize until too late (no turning back) that whoever went through the class to represent the business had to be the one that would do the public pitch. Yikes…I would have definitely nominated someone else. 😣
While I was busy taking the class…we were also starting to look at buildings where we could open our first store/bakery to make the Stroopies in Lancaster City. If the market stand wasn’t an option…maybe another door would open.
I remember the first time looking through the building at 141 N Duke St. In the front there was a local barber shop and the back 2/3rds of the building had not been touched for years and was in need of major renovation…including a back green house that was falling down. The building also had two apartments above it that could help us with overall cost feasibility. Due to the experience with fixing up our house that had been in terrible condition (which I now loved) …I had eyes to see that the property had potential.
The area in the back which housed the falling down greenhouse…seemed like it could be a perfect outdoor courtyard with a little TLC. We knew that there would be a lot of offers on the building, because it was priced to sell. Jonathan and I took time to pray about it…and felt like this may be the perfect place to launch Stroopies in the city! We were pretty certain that the folks walking by on North Duke St. would appreciate the smell of the Stroopies baking more than the cornfields that surrounded us out at the candy shop. So…we wrote a letter with a prayer to the owners with an offer explaining our vision and our hopes for the property.
Meanwhile, my business pitch was starting to come together in my class. I realized that the class was starting to build my confidence that I could communicate confidently about the Stroopie seed that was growing and about our employment social enterprise. The Lancaster community was very proud of the fact that many new refugee and immigrant families were finding a home in our city. I would practice my pitch to anyone who would listen. What could go wrong in 5 minutes… If I practiced and practiced!! (maybe I would have had more confidence if I would have taken that preaching class like I wanted to all those years before!! 🙂) I hoped that I could effectively communicate why Stroopies was founded…and our hopes and dreams with the growing Stroopie seeds.
My pitch went something like this: I explained the refugee crisis. That families didn’t want to leave their homelands, but due to war and persecution they were forced to leave. That many families would flee to refugee camps, where they would wait for years and years…and that the lucky few got to be resettled. When they came to our city Lancaster…we hoped that our employment social enterprise could remove barriers for resettled refugee women to have meaningful employment and a new community of friends…all while making and selling Stroopies! That the business was the engine that would make our for profit social enterprise roar with opportunity for the refugee community!
I also learned about B (Benefit) Corps…for the first time. (1) I was intrigued to find out that this was a way for us to legally establish our social mission into the company. That when registered with the state of PA, the reason we were established (to provide meaningful employment for resettled refugees) would be preserved if we ever went to sell the business. Although, no perks or tax breaks…this was great news!
A couple of other amazing windows opened up in 2015 while I was in this class! Our offer at 141 N Duke St. was accepted!! (And Groff’s Candies breathed a collective sigh of relief…we were going to launch the coop!!) It seemed like the letter really opened the door. It appeared the owners chose our offer, because they loved the thought of a family business like Stroopies moving in. The owner’s family had used 141 N Duke St. to sell plants that they grew in the green house many years before…and they liked the thought of another business moving in that wanted to grow seeds. 🙂 God was opening a door for us…and the hard work of renovating the building started! We were giddy with excitement…
The other door that opened up while I was taking my class and preparing my pitch, was a company that was wholesaling our Stroopies in New York, put in the largest wholesale order that we had ever gotten at Stroopies…3,936 gift packs…9x bigger than any order we had ever received!!! We couldn’t believe it, and we wondered if we could actually fill the order!!
All three things collided at the seemingly perfect time. The purchase of the building for our first retail space, the business competition where I was going to be able to launch our idea for the first time publicly in Lancaster, and the biggest wholesale order we had ever received.
It made us pause (selah) and realize that God was in the timing of all of this, and that we could have never had all three of these things align. It reminded us that God was creating Stroopies with us…and that we could trust him to close doors and open windows for us. His timing was perfect.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lancastersweetshoppe.com
- Instagram: @sweetlancaster
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lancsweetshoppe
