Jamie Ann Bell’s Anchorage bakery produces six thousand cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and other treats weekly — a future she never imagined.
Bell (Ahtna Athabascan) studied pre-med in college, drawn by her love of science. When she had an opportunity for a residency, Bell realized that path wasn’t for her. Her unexpected turn toward baking began with her sister-in-law’s baby shower. When a local bakery’s wedding cake price quote proved too expensive, Bell offered to make it herself. Though that first cake wasn’t perfect, she had an epiphany.
“I started to realize that baking was chemistry, and I love science, so that’s kind of where it shifted for me,” Bell said.
She went back to school for culinary arts and business, a decision that surprised her loved ones.
“My family was a little bit like, what are you doing with your life?” she laughed.
She met her business partner, Linnaea Ward-Develice, working at Snow City Cafe, a popular cafe in Anchorage. After working days as servers at the restaurant, they spent evenings in the kitchen making baked goods — and Arctic Moon Bakery was born. They dreamed of creating their own space for the business, where they could sell their baked creations and coffee.
“That is when it came to life,” Bell said.
In 2015, Bell and Ward-Develice filed for an LLC and took a small business class taught by the Alaska Small Business Development Center, led by Julie Nolan. After teaching 12 classes a year, Nolan said that many of her presentations blend together, but she distinctly remembered the two budding business owners.
“What was memorable about the two of them is that they knew what they were talking about,” Nolan said. “They had a lot of experience working at one of the busiest establishments downtown. So when they came to that class, they knew what the cost of goods was to make a latte. They knew what it cost to produce a scone or a muffin, and they asked questions that were insightful and thoughtful.”
Little did they know, Bell and Ward-Develice would cross paths with Nolan again years later at Cook Inlet Lending Center, a certified Native CDFI that provides Alaska Native community members with tools of economic mobility, including mortgages, small business lending, technical assistance and personal finance coaching.
In 2019, Bell and Ward-Develice were ready to take the next step and build out a commercial kitchen to scale their growing operation. They turned to Cook Inlet Lending Center, which had just launched their small business loan program. They spent months gathering paperwork and working with their lending officer, and they had invested $40,000 of their own money to book a construction company for the build ahead of closing on the loan.
The pair were scheduled to sign their lending paperwork with Cook Inlet Lending on March 17, 2020. They would be the CDFIs first ever small business loan clients; but, things didn’t go as planned.
“That day, Anchorage went into lockdown and that’s when everything froze so we lost our funding that day,” Bell said.
With their own money invested and determination to move forward with the construction of their space, the women took out a subprime business loan elsewhere, with an adjustable rate.
“We were in scramble mode, our personal finances were at stake,” she said. “But I knew in my gut it wasn’t a good idea.”
While the partners were able to move forward with building out their commercial kitchen, the interest rate on their loan quickly soared to nearly 15%, tripling their payments, straining the business they worked so hard to grow.
In 2022, Bell and Ward-Develice turned back to Cook Inlet Lending for help with their loan, and found their old friend and mentor, Nolan, who had just joined the CDFI as a business lending manager.
“We joke that everything’s just simply meant to be because even though it looks like catastrophe and even though it looks like there’s no way that this business can move forward, somehow the universe shifts,” Bell said.
When Nolan began reviewing their application packet, she felt a surge of pride.
“I came over to Cook Inlet Lending, when we started to review their packet for a small business loan,” Nolan said. “I can’t tell you how rewarding it was and how proud I felt, because now I got to look at what they were actually doing and what they had done in the last couple years.”
Cook Inlet Lending refinanced Bell and Ward-Develice’s loan with a fixed interest rate of 3%, substantially lowering their payments. At the time, it was one of the Native CDFI’s largest small business loans, at $140,000.
“We were just extremely excited, and for me, it was just joyful that we were able to offer a lower interest rate at the time for a business that’s just part of our DNA for the indigenous community,” Jeff Tickle, the CDFI’s president and CEO, said.
With substantially lower loan payments, Bell and Ward-Develice were able to focus on scaling Arctic Moon into the business of their dreams. They obtained their wholesale distributor license and today supply delicious baked goods to the largest coffee producer in Alaska. And if you are flying on a local airline in the state, you might just be served a tasty treat bearing the Arctic Moon logo.
“With the new payment, we were able to breathe, relax, and look at where we wanted to take our company,” Bell said. “We are thriving now.”
Aside from meeting the demands of their wholesale clients, Arctic Moon takes custom orders for weddings and special events, which Bell describes as an adventure.
She describes transporting a four-tiered wedding cake up to a wedding venue in the mountains.
“Only in Alaska do you get to say, ‘I’m so sorry we’re late, but there’s a black bear on the road,’” she laughed.
The orders that bring her the most joy, she says, come from the Alaska Native community.
“The Native community is just outstanding,” Bell said. “They have really supported us. And when you have somebody in Naknek say, ‘can you ship me out a graduation cake for my kid? Just take it down to the airlines and they’ll send it for me.’ Those are the best.”
Difference Makers 2.0 is a new yearlong series that highlights how Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs) work alongside their small business clients to accelerate change and create economic opportunities in Native communities. Join the Native CDFI Network and Tribal Business News as they shine a spotlight on the people accelerating economic change in Indian Country. Read the stories here and be sure to tune into the Difference Makers 2.0 podcast.