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OREM – Even after all these years, James Worthington still knows how to run the register.
"My mom and dad started Kneaders in 1997, and so I've been involved ever since," he said. "Yeah, there's some tense moments every once in a while, when you work with family that happens, but for the most part, it's a really good experience."
While he might be able to hop in and take a few orders, that's certainly not his main role – he's now running the entire company. His mom says her son worked for every penny he's made.
"He earned it," said Colleen Worthington, James' mom. "At Christmastime, he'd go sleep on the floor at the bakery, and bake all through the night."
Colleen and her husband Gary started Kneaders with one location in Orem and have now expanded their restaurants into seven states. While the family business may run in their blood, something else does, too.
"You know, my grandmother died of cancer before I was even born," James Worthington said. "My nephew Tanner had cancer a couple of years ago as a teenager."
"I had the opportunity to go up and visit him at Primary Children's a lot," Colleen Worthington said. "You take this sweet 13-year-old boy that's thinking of going to Lake Powell and being with his friends, and the next minute, he's there in the hospital and they're saying 'Tanner, you have cancer.'"
It was on one of those trips to the hospital that Colleen realized she needed to do something to help.
"I saw all these mamas in the hall, just holding their sweet little babies that were bald," she said. "I thought to myself, if I ever have the opportunity to do something for these people, I will."
That's why Kneaders is now selling elephant-shaped cookies. The proceeds go to help fight childhood cancer. The reason for the design is simple: the donations raised will help fund a special kind of research being conducted by a doctor at the University of Utah.
"His research has to do with elephants, and why elephants don't get cancer," James Worthington said.
That research project is being run by Dr. Joshua Schiffman, who's investigating elephant genes. He believes something called the "P53" gene helps elephants fight cancer. He says humans have two copies of this gene in each cell, while elephants have 40.
There are high hopes for this research — and judging by last year's cookie sale, high demand from customers.
"We may have underestimated the amount of cookies we would need, and we sold out in the first four hours of the first day," James Worthington said.
Kneaders employees have doubled their efforts, and their motivation is even stronger because in the time since last year, their family's been touched yet again.
"My father is undergoing treatment right now for cancer," James Worthington said.
Although his nephew Tanner is in remission, Gary Worthington, James' dad and Colleen's husband, was diagnosed last November.
"If I would have gotten cancer instead of Gary, there was not one of us that would have been surprised," Colleen Worthington said. "Because cancer runs in my family and does not run in his. It just proves that anyone can get it."
Their goal is to raise $300,000 this year and the entire family is determined to make that happen — even if making enough cookies means going back to sleeping on the bakery floor.
"It's something that impacts my family quite a bit, and we know that impacts everybody," James Worthington said.
If you would like to buys cookies or merchandise online, visit https://hope.kneaders.com/.
