Profile-by-AndrewT

Stacy Sullivan

Amazing Shop turns Candy Revenue into new tech for Local Schools. Spectators are Amazed.

There are not many places in a town like Los Altos where young and old can mix together without stepping on each other’s toes and benefit the community just by being present and enjoying themselves. Something I have noticed in the past few years of my life in Los Altos is the people here love to say they are friendly and accepting, but

they really don’t seem to have any idea who their next door neighbors are. In 50 years Los Altos has turned from a sleepy little orchard town into a bustling Bay Area tech town without very much warmth or culture. What kind of place can the old people go to when they feel like talking to someone who isn’t in a retirement home as well? Where can an

elementary school student go to ask out a girl he has a crush on for the first time? Where can new parents drink their favorite gourmet coffees and mingle with other adults while their children get hyped up on sugar? The Sweet Shop of course! A beautiful example of a modern take on a throwback from a better time in Los Altos as far as community is con-

cerned.

The Sweet Shop is a non profit candy, pastry, and coffee shop started by Stacy Sullivan, a Google employee and Los Altos native. Stacy is an incredibly generous bubbly person who generally seems to care about making people happy and helping out. “I think its safe to say that everyone at the shop adores her, she is the best boss, she is one of the nicest people in the world, she is one of the most generous people. Any of us know and so its really..we couldnt ask for a better owner of the shop or boss.”(Kouvelas) In a town where many people hoard their wealth better than dragons, Stacy has recognized an issue and devoted a huge portion of her time and money to the cause of improving her community. Profits from the

Sweet Shop go directly to the Los Altos K-8 School district.

The money raised by the Sweet Shop is used to pay for things like smart boards and materials for classrooms that otherwise would have been absent. In Los Altos, there are a large number of very affluent people however our school’s are still feeling the financial crisis our school is in. Besides the monetary benefits of the sweet shop there are other pros to consider. The Sweet Shop brings people of all ages together in a community that I believe was losing sight of its sense of community.

Stacy was born in Philadelphia, but moved to Los Altos when she was two. During her time at Gunn High School, she used to go to the old sweet shop during lunch whenever she managed to get a note from

her parents. After getting her college degree from UC Berkeley Stacy headed out into the world and got a job at Google when there was only about 50 employees. Stacy has been working at google for 14 years as the Chief Cultural Officer and People Operations Director. In 2005 Stacy was walking past the Sweet Shop property with her family when she stumbled upon a brilliant idea. “We were just taking a walk one day when my husband my two sons and I, kids at the time, my boys were 13 and ten, and we were just walking by the shop.

We were telling the boys about what the shop used to be and how it changed over time and now it had been abandoned for about 5 years, it was just run down and it looked bad. We just looked at it and we hadn’t

really talked about it before and i just turned to my husband and said, “wouldn’t it be cool if we just turned this into something really great for the community, something just really nice that’s not an eyesore or...something great for the neighborhood that encourages them to just walk and ride their bikes and a gathering place? and then any proceeds we make or any profit we can just give back to a great cause, like to our local schools, something like that.” (Sullivan) After her walk Stacy got to work creating her dream. The biggest obstacle in Stacy’s way at the time was the fact that the Sweet Shop was in a residential area and its vendors license had expired. This meant she had to get it renewed and needed the approval of residents. “So the biggest obstacle we faced opening the sweet shop was getting the essential permit to open up the shop in the middle of a residential area”. (Sullivan) During this process Stacy encountered some opposition from residents who feared a shop in a residential area would negatively affect their quality of life. “There were just a few corner

cases of neighbors that had concerns about noise or trash which were all justified.” After getting permission to build the shop, Stacy had to decide what the shop would look like. I could tell from talking to Stacy that the way the Sweet Shop visually transformed Los Altos really meant a lot to her. “she took it in her initiative and built it from like the inside out, she hired a designer, she hired a builder, she did everything and she wanted it to be the best shop it could be and she took like her image and made it reality and I think a lot of people can’t do that and she did it exactly how she wanted to.” (Kouvelas) Today the Sweet Shop is absolutely a fixture of Los Altos culture.

One of the greatest things

about Stacy is that she devoted a huge amount of time, ef-

fort, and money to solving a community issue, despite the fact that she is busy with her job at Google as well as being a mother of two. “I think she plays different roles because shes a mom, shes a boss, and then shes also just a working woman, and I think that is something any girl can live up to as a person in general because to see someone be so successful and be so genuine is

really really unique.” (Kouvelas) Stacy worked hard to find a creative way to improve her community and generate income for the local schools.

Budget cuts have caused major setbacks in the California education system over the past half decade. “So over the past 4 years the state of California has had significant budget problems and what that has meant to Los Altos is that we’ve had to reduce our teaching staff, reduce our support staff, increase class size, and reduce our focus on some of the innovations programs that we had been investing in.” (Goines) When we asked Stacy about the budget cuts in Los Altos she had a lot to say. Stacy has noticed over the years that children, despite living in our affluent community were still receiving less programs and technology than they had before. Education in America really needs to be moving forward not backwards. “It just seems that anything we can do to give back just a little bit even just technology or

even just helping to support hiring of part time teachers is gonna make a big difference in even just one child’s life and once again I’m all about giving back locally and I think

I can have the most impact from giving anything that the Sweet Shop can make just to any of the schools even just to make the smallest difference” (Sullivan). Stacy also uses the Sweet Shop as a way to build a sense of community in Los Altos. “So the best part about owning the Sweet Shop is that its really viewed as a gift in our mind and just a community gathering spot that all types of people can benefit from” (Sullivan). Personally, my favorite factor of the Sweet Shop is that Stacy has found a way to harness the wealth of our community by using our

own children’s sweet tooths.

How often does a kid get to improve his learning experience by stuffing himself with sugar? One of the regulars is senior citizen named Harry.

He told us he loves the gift Stacy has given the community because it gives him a chance to drink his coffee and get in touch with a different generation. “Another great story is we have one of our favorite customers named Harry who is actually sitting right behind me.

He is just kinda the heart and soul of our shop. He has been highlighted in the town crier as our number one customer because he really embodies the spirit of the place. People of all ages, a whole diverse group of ages, people from all walks of life, they just enjoy the place.”

(Sullivan) Stacy has done this town an enormous favor by giving it back a little piece of the sense of safety and closeness it had lost.