Maya-Camille Broussard bakes to help people

By Kelvin Childs 

 

 

Maya-Camille Broussard (’01, BFA, magna cum laude), chef and owner of Justice of the Pies, has made the enterprise about more than sweet and savory treats.

The Chicago-based bakery, launched in 2014, is the cornerstone of an empire that, at heart, is about helping people in various ways, as listed on justiceofthepies.com. It includes: 

• “Bake Squad,” a two-season competition series on Netflix from 2021–2023 in which Broussard and three other pastry chefs were challenged to create elaborate confections for special events. 
• The I KNEAD LOVE series of one-day workshops, which teach children nutritional knowledge, kitchen skills, and ways to be creative while cooking and baking. Short video versions are posted on YouTube. 
• A best-selling cookbook, “Justice of the Pies: Sweet and Savory Pies, Quiches, and Tarts Plus Inspirational Stories from Exceptional People.” 
• The Broussard Justice Foundation. Established in 2020, the 501(c)3 nonprofit deals with food insecurity and health disparity issues in underserved communities. 

Threaded through Broussard’s different efforts is the desire to help people. Justice of the Pies is a L3C, or low-profit limited liability company, meaning its goal is about social good more than money.  She created Justice of the Pies in honor of her late father, Stephen J. Broussard, a criminal defense attorney who indulged in baking pies as a separate passion, she told Al Roker of “Today” on his podcast in May 2021.  

“I knew I wanted it to be purposeful. It just couldn’t be a business that made money,” Broussard told Roker. She continued, “But it had to be a business that made a difference. And, because my dad made a difference in terms of being a criminal defense attorney and representing people that looked like him, that grew up on the west side of Chicago like he did, that grew up in the projects like he did.”  

The self-taught chef is part of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community and relies on lip-reading, she told ABC7/WLS-TV Chicago in 2019.  

A donation to the Impact Fund for the School of Business can launch tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. Please give. Howard University School of Business