Star Tribune
Meet the St. Paul woman who opened a candy store to teach girls about entrepreneurship
Aretta-Rie Johnson will tell you that she’s just a big kid at heart. But she also grew up in a family dedicated to faith, education and community-building in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood.
Combine that background with brainstorming educational opportunities for teenage girls in the group home she runs, and what do you get? Why, the Tooth Fairy Candy Store, of course.
Johnson last month launched one of Selby Avenue’s newest businesses as a way to teach her girls entrepreneurship while also having a lot of fun. Eye On St. Paul recently sat down with Johnson to talk about the neighborhood’s latest corner candy store — and what she hopes it becomes.
This interview was edited for length.
Q: You said you bought this building, which had been used by your uncle and then your mother for years. Why?
A: I have always had a passion for education — education is the rudiment of success for us. I’d been fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home mom. Then we were empty nesters. I started fostering girls and there was nothing for the kids to do in the summers, so I created a program called Verbal Advantage. It grew to 125 kids in the summer. Then I started the DIVINE Institute, then DIVINE Intervention — a group home for girls. We needed administrative offices.
Q: Why a candy store?
A: If you know me, you know that I love to have fun with you. I wish people could understand. Even though I’m an administrator, I came to play. And the girls we serve? Nobody wanted these girls. They’re angry. They’ve been dealt a terrible hand in life, so they take it out on everybody. But they’re trying to be kids.
When I was doing my research and I wanted to help Black women who were in business stay in business. But then I told myself, why do we want to wait until they become women? We could help girls become entrepreneurs.
Through lots of discussion, we came up with the Tooth Fairy Candy Store.
Q: So the girls were really key in driving this decision?
A: Yes. I get really excited about this and I pray one day this dream becomes a reality, but if I could have my way, I would like to take all the onus off of a child. So many of these girls are dealing with serious issues. Kids shouldn’t be responsible for figuring out life. That’s my job. When they come here, I want them to take all the grownup stuff and throw it away.
So [someday] I envision a place, a Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory coupled with a FedEx-Kinko’s type laboratory where we could do projects and presentations.
Q: Why is fun such an important element for you?
A: I don’t know. I think it has something to do with my childhood. Somebody told me, and I don’t know if they were being condescending, but I took it as a compliment. They said, “You’re just a big kid.” And I said, “I really am.” And it could be because I was sick my entire childhood. [Johnson had grand mal seizures and took multiple medications every day. But at 14, a visiting preacher convinced her she was healed.]
I haven’t taken a pill since. And I haven’t had a seizure. I think I’m drawn to fun because my childhood was kind of stolen a little bit.
Q: It seems you’re also enabling these girls to have fun, because they also have been robbed of a childhood.
A: Yeah.
Q: How do they help you with the candy store?
A: They have [helped] at the candy store since its inception. I asked them the other day, “How long have we been talking about the candy store?” They said, “About a year, Miss Aretta.”
Some months, we would do intentional focus groups. What kind of candy is going to be in this candy store? So they would take out their phones and we would start researching candy. We also did our own market analysis, if you will. We went to every candy store in proximity. The closest is about five, six miles away, called Regina’s. They were very friendly. We went to the Mall of America, with several candy stores, to get ideas.
We did a lot of taste-testing. Especially when it came to Taffy Town. Would just sit there and eat samples.
Q: That’s research I want to be part of.
A: [Laughs.]
Q: How many girls are with you on this?
A: Well, I am licensed up to 11 girls. I would say about eight girls helped with the project.
Q: That’s got to be satisfying, that they had that kind of a role in this.
A: When we were thinking through this thing, I said, “Oh my God, this becomes on-the-job training.” Many of them have never had a job. So it helps them with some work experience.
Q: So they work behind the counter. What else?
A: They help with inventory. They also know how to input receivables. Last night, we were $6 negative in the till, so I’ll ask, “What do you think happened to it?”
Q: What are your expectations financially? Are you going to turn a profit?
A: I have never done retail to this extent. So it’s a learning experience for all of us. Based on what I know, it took about $25,000 [of my own money] to set this up. It’s going to take about a year before we start making a profit.
Star Tribune
Palestinian officials say an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza killed 15
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.
Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, confirmed the toll and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.
“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by both militant groups inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
Hamas-led militants triggered the war when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
Twin Amur tigers born at Como Zoo in August now have names — Marisa and Maks.
Two long-time volunteers who have worked with zookeepers to care for and teach the public about the zoo’s big cats came up with the names, the first to be born at the St. Paul zoo in more than 40 years.
Marisa, a name that the volunteers found to mean “spirited and tenacious,” call that a perfect reflection of her personality. The name also carries special significance for the Como Zoo community, as it honors a retired zookeeper of the same name who was instrumental in the care of large cats during her 43 years at the zoo, Como Zoo and Conservatory Director Michelle Furrer said.
The male cub has been named Maks, which is associated with meanings like “the greatest” or “strength and leadership.” The volunteers felt this was an apt description of the male cub’s confident demeanor and growing sense of leadership, Furrer said.
“Marisa and Maks aren’t just names; they’re a fun reminder of the passion and care that keep us committed to protecting wildlife every day,” Furrer said.
The newborns and their first-time mother, 7-year-old Bernadette, remain off view to allow for more bonding time, zoo officials said. The cubs’ father, 11-year-old Tsar, has been a Como resident since February 2019 and remains on view.
Fewer than 500 Amur tigers — also known as Siberian tigers — remain in the wild as they face critical threats from habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict, the zoo said.
Much of the wood waste in the metro area is sent to a processing site near Pig’s Eye Lake in St. Paul, where it is stored before being burned to produce energy at the St. Paul Cogeneration plant downtown.
Cogeneration provides power to about half of downtown and was originally built to manage elm-tree waste in response to Dutch elm disease. The plant burns approximately 240,000 tons of wood each year, according to Michael Auger, senior vice president of District Energy in St. Paul.
Jim Calkins, a certified landscape horticulturalist who has been involved in discussions about the problem, said he thinks using wood for energy is the most logical solution.
“The issue is, we don’t have enough facilities to be able to handle that, at least in the Twin Cities,” Calkins said. “So there has to be dollars to support transportation to get the wood to those places, or in some cases, to upgrade some of those facilities such that they are able to burn wood.”
Plans are in place to convert Koda Energy in Shakopee to burn ash wood, which could potentially handle around 40,000 tons of wood waste, but that would take around two years to establish, according to Klapperich.
In some areas of the state, cities have resorted to burning excess wood waste because they felt they had no other option. Open burning wood releases a lot of carbon into the air, Klapperich said.
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