Andrelia Gooch

Your Name: Andrelia D. Gooch

Business Name: Andrelia’s Personal Touch Catering (APTC), a food and catering service

Type of Business: Food & Beverage; Community Outreach Project

Business Location: Nashville, Tennessee,United States
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AndreliasPersonalTouchCateringServices

Reason for starting
After I helped a friend cater her first event, a Birthday Party, in 2009, was immediately hooked, for more reasons than one! I’m a sincerely grateful recovering addict whose addiction took me places that I won’t ever go again. My faith in God and love for preparing good quality, mouth watering food combined with the beautiful fanfare & pageantry helps us make a catering job, unforgettable. Now, I have the honest desire to give back what was so freely given to me — coupled with more gratitude for the lessons learned in recovery, speaks volumes.

How do you define success?
When God wakes me up in the morning, I am reminded that I owe him a great deal for my life, APTC and in the overall scheme of things. Being a catalyst & Change agent for success. Helping others, by giving back, teaching and most of all, continuing to utilize the power of APTC for sharing and caring to benefit others, while making a desirable living via my business.

Biggest Success
Being brought out of an awful pit of despair to enjoy the life and APTC that I’ve been blessed with. Being able to share it with others, raising my two handsome sons, Montarious Gooch & Mario Gooch. Being able to spend quality time with my beautiful Mom, Catherine Nesbitt-Brown, my amazing Grandchildren: Mario, Jr. and Zha’maria and my literal “BFF” Ms. Beth. Whereas other businesses mass produce by going the franchise route, we prefer to keep APTC a one site, mega operation. We use APTC to give back to our community via Coat & Warm Clothing Drives in the winter, feeding the elderly in nursing homes/community centers.

What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it?
All roads are intertwined or led to APTC in one way or the other. A key item at the top of my proverbial wish list is to a implement a training program through APTC, that will directly help decrease the impacting, incarceration recidivism rates in our country. APTC would like to be instrumental in giving the fallen and less desirable human beings a chance to get back into the mainstream of society.

Who is your most important role model?
Not just one and if it’s possible, “God” first! My amazing mother, Catherine Nesbitt-Brown, my partner Karen F. Williams and a few select “Warrior Women”, who like myself, are very grateful and proud to be in recovery; being a part of the solution and not the problem!”