Healdsburg 'College Confectionista' appears on 'Good Morning America'

Anamaria Morales, a 21-year-old Healdsburg college student with her own successful cheesecake business, told her story on the ABC show Wednesday morning.|
GRACE YARROW
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A Healdsburg college student who started her own cheesecake business as a way to pay for school was featured on ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday morning and given a sweet surprise.

Anamaria Morales, 21, known around Sonoma County as the "College Confectionista," started her dessert business as a senior at El Molino High School and made enough to pay her way through Santa Rosa Junior College. She'll soon start at UC Berkeley and be able to graduate debt free thanks to the popularity of her treat business.

Morales thought she had been flown to New York to bake for the morning show staff. Instead, she was surprised by host Robin Roberts while in the "GMA" kitchen and invited on stage to tell her story to Roberts and co-hosts Michael Strahan and George Stephanopolos. In addition, she was given a $10,000 check as well as a set of Kitchen Aid appliances in her favorite color, cherry red.

“I am a firecracker,” Morales said. “She can attest to that,” she added, pointing to her mother, Laura, who accompanied her to the Times Square set.

In the future, she hopes to grow her business and help others like her get an education.

“I mainly want to focus on helping Latina and minority women in the Sonoma County and the Bay Area community,” she said. “The bigger goal is to have College Confectionista be a nationwide nonprofit assisting young women from every state.”

See the video:

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.
Send a letter to the editor