Jobless mom created ‘Flantasia Flan’ to give opportunities to young adults with disabilities
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The pandemic brought twin problems for Mara Salinas.
The Miami resident had lost her job as a lead case manager at the Homestead detention center for unaccompanied migrant children after it closed in November 2019. COVID-19 made finding new work even more difficult.
Her 20-year-old daughter, Rachel Lazo, was struggling to find work, too. Lazo has autism and was doing well at her school, Learning Links — which offers individualized support for students with disabilities — but finding a job in the real world was difficult.
Lazo had applied for jobs in her community — Publix, Goodwill, Fresco y Mas — but few of them called her back, according to Salinas.
“It was just really hard. Nobody ever hired her,” Salinas said. “Every time she went, it was this whole panic thing.”
Sparking an idea
But in December 2020, when Salinas visited Learning Links to support its holiday shop, she saw something that sparked an idea. Her daughter was on the cash register, “interacting with people like never before. She was in charge.”
A few months later, when the pandemic was still in full force, Salinas took a risk: She began a small flan business, to provide her daughter work and social opportunities. Eventually, their fledgling business, Flantasia Flan, began to provide work for both Salinas and her daughter, a silver lining in a terrible time.
Baking flan is not unfamiliar to Salinas. She used to sell her homemade dessert in her community when Lazo was 5, but she stopped when her daughter’s therapies became too time-consuming.
“I’ve been making flan my whole life,” Salinas said. “Everybody has always loved it, and my daughter loves to cook.”
With the help of both her daughter and her 21-year-old son, Jake Lazo, Salinas sold out her first farmers’ market offering in April and has been selling there ever since. Now the small baking business has expanded, catering local restaurants, corporate events and private celebrations.
Salinas uses a family recipe for the flan, passed down by her great-grandmother through four generations. But don’t expect an outdated dessert. Flantasia Flan puts a new spin on classic tastes through inventive flavors such as Oreo and red velvet — and a vegan version is coming soon.
“Flan is like your grandma’s flan. It’s kind of like an old dessert,” Salinas said. “We’re trying to put a new twist for the kids to get into it.”
Employable skills
Aside from filling local bellies with caramel goodness, the larger goal of Salinas’ business is to give her daughter and her daughter’s school peers an opportunity to develop the skills — engaging customers, handling cash, taking inventory and preparing a table set up for the markets — that can help them get jobs. Such real-life training is important for young adults with disabilities to navigate a world largely designed for neurotypical people.
“There’s a need for it,” Salinas said. “There’s a need for these young adults that might get a lot of training, but then they get out into the real world, and people turn away from them.”
Salinas has also started a nonprofit, The Families Leading an Autism Network Foundation — or The F.L.A.N. Foundation. Salinas hopes to raise enough money to educate and employ young adults on the autism spectrum or considered “at-risk” in some way. The foundation is run by an all-woman board.
Coming from the field of social work, an industry dominated by women with men disproportionately in senior roles, Salinas says she likes to see women succeed in unexpected ways.
“My family is matriarchal, which I know is unusual for Hispanic families, but I think a lot are and just let the men pretend they’re in charge,” she said.
She’s hoping the family business will give her daughter the confidence she needs to seize the opportunities ahead of her. “I am a firm believer that women rule the world,” Salinas said.
You can find Mara Salinas and her daughter, Rachel Lazo, selling flan at Palmetto Bay Farmers Market and Yellow Green Market in Hollywood on the weekends.
This story was originally published September 5, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
