The Sweet & Treat Spot

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic had varying effects throughout the community of Covina. The Los Angeles Unified School District shut down schools back in March and has not reopened for students to learn in school since.

Covina High School, like many other schools within the state of California and even throughout the country, adopted virtual learning back in April and has continued to implement it because of the challenges of COVID-19 still being faced. I, Corina Cervantes, a current senior at Covina High School, dealt with many of the same struggles and challenges other students faced from March to the end of the 2019-2020 school year. I found myself very unmotivated to not only get schoolwork done, but even to workout, clean, or do other small things.

There was little to nothing anyone could do because COVID had shut everything down and forced people to quarantine and distance themselves from others. I couldn’t see my friends or even some of my immediate family members, which made it hard to find things to look forward to. However, things slowly took a turn when I realized that I could use the time during quarantine to better myself and pick up new hobbies and deepen my interests for things I never really had the time to do.

Towards the end of April and rolling in to the beginning of May, my stepmom and I created a small business to sell homemade desserts. It all really started when I wanted to make chocolate covered strawberries and deliver them to my close friends and family who I hadn’t got to see because of the hardships and stress towards the beginning of the pandemic.

An idea sparked between both my stepmom and I to promote and sell chocolate covered strawberries, and that is how the Sweet & Treat Spot came about. The Sweet & Treat Spot can be found on both Instagram and Facebook @thesweetntreatspot. We make an assortment of desserts, and even salsa, which we have recently added to our menu and plan to start a separate page for because of its accelerating success.

We make and sell chocolate covered strawberries, pretzels, Oreos, and candy apples. One of our biggest orders came from Father’s Day, where we dipped over 200 strawberries, 60 pretzels, and Oreos. The Sweet & Treat Spot has not only allowed me to be creative but grow a stronger bond with my step mom that I will forever be grateful for. I believe that although COVID-19 and the time spent in quarantine had its setbacks, it also had its silver linings.