1 Million Cups hosted Anna McDow of Sugar Rush Candy, LLC on April 7, 2021. McDow was the presenter for the meeting and spoke to the assemblage of guests about the history of the business.

McDow moved to Ponca City two years ago from Kansas. She was a nurse for years and learned that some of her credentials didn’t transfer over from Kansas to Oklahoma.

While working at the nursing home, she decided she’d like to open a candy store as it was something she wanted to do for some time and thought it offered something kid friendly for Ponca City.

“I noticed when I moved to Ponca City there wasn’t a lot that was kid oriented,” said McDow.

Sugar Rush Candy has nearly 5,000 pounds of candy in the store and displays change weekly. The store worked with the Poncan Theatre during the theatre’s showings of the Harry Potter films, providing butterbeer and cotton candy.

The store also has regular and sugar free candies as well as the world’s hottest lollipop: the Toe of Satan. The Toe of Satan has a Scoville heat rating of 9 million.

For the future, McDow is hoping to expand into a party room as people have asked about having parties there.

Ultimately, McDow’s main goal is to make sure everyone has candy.

“It makes people happy,” said McDow. “I’ve worked nursing for so long and I’ve seen people sick all the time…[I] decided I wanted to see people happy all the time.”

McDow was presented with an orange cup by Dr. Robert Howard for presenting at the meeting.

1 Millions Cups is a program that brings entrepreneurs, innovators, funders and other interested community members together to talk over coffee and listen to a founder speak about their business followed up by a question and answer session.