Taylor Moxey Inspires Kids to Dream Big

Taylor Moxey Inspires Kids to Dream Big

by Melissa Fales

Taylor Moxey is only 12 years old, but she’s already launched a successful business, written a book, created a foundation through which she runs her philanthropic endeavors, and was even named Black Soulutions’ 2018 Woman of the Year. “When I look back at everything that I’ve accomplished, it’s something that 7-year-old me could never have imagined,” Moxey says. “And to think that it all happened just because I wanted a Barbie doll.”

Taylor Moxey

As a young girl, Moxey enjoyed a special weekly tradition with her parents. “After church every Sunday, we’d go to Target to shop and I would get a Barbie doll,” she says. “One Sunday, I saw this Barbie doll I really, really wanted but when I asked my father if I could have it, he said no. He told me that I would have to buy it for myself.” Moxey says her parents thought she was ready for a life lesson about earning money to buy the things she wanted instead of depending on her parents, or anyone else, to buy them for her.

Moxey’s parents helped her think about her talents and her passions as a way to determine how she could make enough money to purchase the doll. “I had an Easy Bake Oven and I really liked baking, so I thought I’d sell baked goods,” Moxey says. Her parents gave her a $40 loan to buy the supplies she would need. “We signed a contract written on a napkin saying that once I had reached X amount of money, I would have to pay them back the $40,” says Moxey. “I just wanted to make enough money to pay them back and get the Barbie.”

Moxey baked and brought the finished products to her church. “I told everyone what I was doing and that all proceeds would be going towards my Barbie doll fund,” says Moxey. “I ended up selling out of everything within 15 minutes and I made $175. I was not expecting that. It was so exciting.”

After paying back her parents, Moxey still had a considerable sum of money. “I had a moment where I had to make a decision,” she says. “I could spend a lot of the money, buying the Barbie doll and other things. Or, I could put it back into the business and use it to make more money.” Moxey says it didn’t take long for her to decide to reinvest the money in herself. “My parents are entrepreneurs and that spirit was always around me when I was growing up,” she says. “I guess I had that spark in me, too.”

Moxey used some of her profits to get custom-made business cards for her burgeoning baking business. “I handed them out to my friends, family, teachers, and complete strangers,” she says. “It was before I had a phone, so the cards had my dad’s number on them. He’s a teacher and he started getting all these calls during class from random people wanting to buy cupcakes and brownies and cookies.”

Demand only went up once Moxey entered her classic, buttery, southern cornbread into a local cook-off and won. “Some of the other contestants were professional chefs who owned restaurants and they were all a lot older than me,” she recalls. Moxey received a check and a billboard advertising her business. When a news reporter saw the billboard, she set up an interview with Moxey that later aired on TV. “When I got home from school that day, I could tell my parents were excited,” Moxey says. “They said, ‘We have good news for you,’ and I thought I was getting a dog. But when I found out I was going to be on TV, I was off-the-walls excited.”

While her baking skills put Moxey on the map, she’s begun focusing her energy on some of her other initiatives. “It went from something I was doing as part of a life lesson and it evolved into a full-fledged business,” says Moxey. “I’m proud of that aspect of my life. Right now I’m more focused on the Taylor Moxey Foundation, which I started in order to educate, empower, and encourage literacy and community service for people worldwide.”

One program of the Taylor Moxey Foundation is the Taylor Moxey Library Project, which creates pop-up libraries in low-income areas. The idea came to Moxey during a trip to the Bahamas. “We were in Moxey Town, which is named after my ancestors,” she says. “My parents were working on some property they own there and I was bored out of my mind.” She asked her mother if she could go to a movie theater, but there weren’t any. There wasn’t even a public library for her to visit. “When I learned that, I knew I wanted to change it,” Moxey says.

Back home in Florida, Moxey and her parents got to work, purchasing and transforming a lawnmower truck into a small portable library that could travel from place to place. “That was important because I knew there were other towns in the Bahamas that needed a library,” she says. Moxey received donations of books for the library from all over the world. The truck-turned-library and books were shipped to the Bahamas where they are still being used today. The Taylor Moxey Foundation recently opened a second library in downtown Miami’s Omni Park, this one made out of a former shipping container. Again, book donations poured in. “There’s no age range,” says Moxey. “We wanted to have a variety of books for all ages.” A third library, destined for Colombia, is in the works.

When I look back at everything that I’ve accomplished, it’s something that 7-year-old me could never have imagined. And to think that it all happened just because I wanted a Barbie doll.”

Two years ago, Moxey authored her own book, The Adventures of Taylor the Chef. “It’s basically my story,” she says. “It was easy to write but when I tried to illustrate the book, it was bad. It was basically just stick figures, so we had to have an illustrator do that part.” As a spin-off from the book, Moxey also created “Moxivation” cards, which offer positive affirmations. “They’re designed to help motivate people to be the best they can be,” she says. “They’re little notes with sayings that you can put in a lunch box or wallet or purse and when you need motivation, you just look at it. You read the message, think about it, and hopefully say, ‘I can do this.’ It’s a little pick-me-up. One of my favorites is ‘Dreams don’t work unless you do.’”

Moxey says she hopes young people who hear about the work she’s doing will be inspired to start their own business or to do something that will make a positive change in the world. “My message for other kids is to keep on working towards your dreams,” she says. “Don’t be afraid to work hard for what you want. It would have been a lot easier for me not to start a business when I was 8 years old. I didn’t have to do any of the work I did, but then I wouldn’t be the person I am today.”

For more information about Taylor Moxey, visit, taylormoxeyllc.com or find her on Instagram @Taylor_Moxey. •