N. Valley Stream entrepreneur, 17, meets Obama

It all started with a choice.

Two summers ago, Nia Froome, now 17, had to make a decision: travel in France for three weeks, or stay home to attend a four-week business camp.

The decision she made tells much about the goal-oriented North Valley Stream teen.

"She decided the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship program would most benefit her," said her mother, Dawn Froome. "France would always be there."

And because she attended the business camp, Nia Froome said, she "fell in love" with business, created her online Mamma Nia's Vegan Bakery, and entered the OppenheimerFunds/NFTE/National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge.

Last week, her business plan won the competition's top prize of $10,000 and a White House visit Tuesday with President Barack Obama. Hers was one of 28 entries in the finals, gleaned from 24,000 submissions.

"It was insane, it was so exciting, oh my gosh, it was overwhelming, it was a lot to take in, it was very, very, very exciting," she exhaled after returning home.

The downside, of course, is that Froome, a senior at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, operates on an average of four hours of sleep, snatched from time spent on the business, schoolwork for four advanced placement courses and her co-captaincy of her school step team. She'll finish her college applications before she resumes competition in the spring as a pole vaulter.

"Sleep is a variable in my life," she said. "Nobody likes it, but I'd rather not sleep than not do my homework."

Julie Goldman, one of the Challenge's five final-round judges, praised Froome's presentation and her outgoing personality, which she said would serve her well in pitching products to clients. "I don't think I had that confidence as a 17-year-old," she said.

She said the judges felt that Froome's plan showed promise both for the quality of the product and the potential to expand her product lines. "Her products tasted really great and if you have ever tasted vegan desserts, that's a huge statement," said Goldman, owner of New Jersey-based The Original Runner Co., which sells aisle runners for weddings and other occasions.

Froome has been in the Prep for Prep program since the summer before sixth grade. It's a leadership development program that places promising minority students into preparatory and boarding schools in the Northeast, such as Poly Prep, while providing educational support and cultural opportunities. It gave her the opportunity to attend the NFTE BizCamp at Goldman Sachs in Jersey City, where she first developed her business plan, and this past summer, to intern at JPMorgan Chase in Manhattan.

Amy Rosen, chief executive of NFTE, said even as Froome was a "spectacular young woman" it was hard to narrow down the regional finalists.

The organization, she said, wants to help students "most importantly, to see life opportunities that otherwise they didn't know existed for them."

After Froome's Challenge win, orders began to come in from all over the country for the cookies, cinnamon rolls and cupcakes she created so that her parents could enjoy desserts made without animal products.

Her mother, administrator of the dean's office at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, and father, Orville, who owns a computer service business in Flatbush, Brooklyn, became vegans in search of a healthy diet after Dawn Froome was diagnosed with breast cancer a decade ago.

"I admire her passion for baking," Dawn Froome said, "her determination to achieve and excel. I admire her work ethic, her hard work. It's not easy."

Nia Froome takes it all in stride, perhaps with the stride of a pole vaulter whose eye is on the bar she aims to sail above. "It's been hard dealing with college prep and AP classes and the business, but I've been handling it," she said.

She does the baking one day a week. In the past year, she's had an average of five orders a week - most from friends, family and word-of-mouth.

With the increase, she's planning to rent space in a commercial industrial kitchen in New York City to meet Health Department regulations and enlist relatives as needed. For now, her brother Jair, 14, tries to eat the cookies as soon as they come out of the family's oven.

"Her cookies are so good," he said, "that after I eat one, I find myself reaching for another."

Nia's business

• Nia Froome started her Mamma Nia's Vegan Bakery last year online at

mammaniavb.squarespace.com

• Her oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies sell for $15 a dozen, with two extras (choice of raisins, walnuts, pecans, dried cranberries, chips) included.

• Cinnamon rolls cost $20 for a half dozen, $35 for a dozen.

• Vanilla frosted cupcakes cost $25 per dozen, chocolate frosting $2 extra.

• Everything is made without butter, milk or eggs. Customers are advised to place orders at least two weeks in advance.

- CAROL POLSKY