By Nancy Dahlberg, ndahlberg@miamiherald.com
Last week, the national organization Black Girls Code launched a chapter in Miami and will be bringing its national curricula of technology education to its target market of girls of color ages 7 to 17. Kimberly Bryant, executive director of the nonprofit, said South Florida had Felecia Hatcher to thank for that.
Although several organizations were involved in the launch, “Felecia was the connector, the person that made this all happen,” said Bryant.
It’s hard to know where Hatcher, co-founder and “chief popsicle” of Feverish Pops, a frequent public speaker and the author of two books, finds the time for what she calls her “passion projects,” mainly involving exposing young people to technology and entrepreneurship, but she does. Besides helping to bring Black Girls Code here, Hatcher, 30, also started Code Fever this summer, which offers one day workshops for kids — and their parents.
So far, the organization has held coding workshops for kids on Saturdays at The LAB Miami in Wynwood and at the Village Multipurpose Center in Sunrise, and it has plans to add them during the school day.
Feverish Pops, the company Hatcher launched in 2008, is making moves, too. The boutique gourmet popsicle company could be found selling its products from carts around town and it even had a physical store for awhile, but now it is putting a larger focus on its core business of branding its products for corporations and organizations. Some of its top all-natural flavors include pineapple basil, mango, strawberry balsamic and chocolate salted coconut, and from its line of spiked pops: mango bourbon, watermelon ginger vodka and strawberry mojito.
“Most people think that we just sell popsicles to consumers, but our business actually focuses on bulk orders for major corporations that turn around and use our pops as promotional giveaways,” says Hatcher. “Think of it this way: producing 5,000 Strawberry Mojito popsicles with David Guetta, putting his name on the sticks and wrappers and giving them away to promote his new album, or producing pops to match each color of Google’s logo for their business event, or complete private labeling for major yogurt franchises wanting to offer pops.”
We asked Hatcher a few questions about Feverish and her passion projects.