For one Chattanooga veteran, baking cheesecakes alleviated his PTSD symptoms and helped him start a successful business on social media.
In 2007, Jeff Howard joined the United States Navy Combat Engineering Battalions, also known as the Seabees. He served several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2009-11 during his eight years of service. After returning home, Mr. Howard dealt with anger issues and felt himself becoming another statistic of PTSD.
Mr. Howard found baking relaxing and began spending more time in the kitchen baking his wife’s favorite dessert - cheesecake. He dedicated time to perfecting cheesecake recipes and took requests from friends to challenge his creativity in the kitchen.
In 2017, Mr. Howard decided to create a small business, American Cheesecakes, and introduce it to the Chattanooga community on Facebook. He currently sells his cheesecakes solely through Facebook’s ‘Shops’ feature and always offers a 20 percent discount to veterans and their family members and delivers free of charge to the Chattanooga community.
“We are strictly on Facebook. We take custom order requests and create new flavors, all while delivering free of charge to our area," said Mr. Howard.