PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (Aug. 1, 2025) – Prairie View A&M University senior Jayla Stanford is already the successful business owner of TreatsDippedByJay.
The 21-year-old started her business selling treats four years ago as a junior in high school, and this past week, she celebrated the grand opening of her very own food truck at Champions Food Truck Park in Houston.
Fox 26 Houston interviewed Stanford on its “Small Biz Spotlight.”
Offering familiar flavors like banana pudding, strawberry shortcake, and red velvet, Jay’s treats are anything but: Her cheesecake cups and dipped cheesecakes on a stick have gone viral on social media multiple times, contributing to her success.
She knows it’s rare for a college student to own a successful food truck.
“I am very blessed, and I am very grateful, and I am grateful for my school,” Stanford said in the Fox 26 clip. “I am grateful for my school because they contributed a lot to this. I’m sometimes just lost for words because being so young and being able to accomplish this, something so successful, you don’t see that a lot.”
She says it was not easy to reach this point, especially as a student balancing school and running a business.
Stanford said scheduling, consistency, and a solid support system of friends and family have helped build her business and stay involved at PVAMU, where she says she is involved in various organizations.
She first got the idea to make her own treats when she saw how expensive desserts were.
“I was just being creative and being myself,” she said.
Using her creativity, she developed a recipe for gourmet cookies, which helped her scale her business, now selling online nationwide and bringing in $50,000 since its launch in July 2024.
The cookie sales helped her purchase the food truck, a journey she shares on Instagram at @treatsdippedbyjay.
Watch Stanford’s full interview on Fox 26 Houston here.
By Christine Won
-PVAMU-