Ammy Lowney was 15 years old when she and her father arrived in the U.S. from Colombia. She didn’t speak a word of English. The language barrier left her struggling to make friends at school, join sports teams and show her academic abilities to teachers who underestimated her.
But those early setbacks shaped her resilience. After graduating from Northeastern in 2005 with a degree in political science and public administration, Lowney became a high school civics teacher and, later, a successful business owner of Juicygreens juice bars and plant-based cafés. Lowney celebrated the opening of the eighth Juicygreens at Northeastern’s International Village in Boston on Sept. 4. The shop is operated by Northeastern Dining under a franchise agreement, marking Lowney’s first venture into franchising.
“The reason why I said ‘yes’ to Northeastern is because I want to learn how to do this franchise in the right way,” she says. “It’s not all about the money. It’s also about the knowledge that I’m going to get, making mistakes, learning how to onboard a new campus and how to replicate a juice bar experience.” Lowney came up with the idea for Juicygreens while teaching high school students about social issues in U.S. communities. Her students were doing research on food deserts and the limited access to healthy food in Boston neighborhoods. Looking at her students’ findings made Lowney think about her own community and why healthy food options were so scarce.
