Although Mignon had no formal training, she began practicing her craft, relying on her neighborhood for taste testing when one day a neighbor asked her if she'd make them for her clients. “Even though I was...trying to save enough money to pay bills, I took the last $5 that was allotted for our dinner that week and took her up on the offer.” Mignon turned that $5 into $60 that night, then $600 by the end of the week. “Seventeen years later, we’re at over 5 million cupcakes sold.” 

 “[Our cupcakes] are made with butter, which we equate to love,” Mignon says of their delicious cupcakes, and FedEx has been instrumental in helping her business expand her market.

Mignon serves as an advisor to Lipscomb University‘s College of Business and the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, helping to lead Nashville toward being the premier place for others to start and grow a business. She is passionate about providing scholarships to students in need within her community, and giving to local organizations that serve causes like food insecurity and her work with Safe Haven, a shelter that works to keep families together in the face of homelessness. Together with other colleagues The Cupcake Collection helped raise more than a million dollars for the organization.

As a 2023 FedEx^® Small Business Grant program winner, The Cupcake Collection is looking forward to scaling up their business by investing in new equipment. “We’ll be able to purchase our own walk-in freezer,” says Tonisha, “in order to get more FedEx trucks pulling in and rolling out those cupcakes every day.”