Penn State graduate Maggie O’Neill wasted no time beginning her career after graduation. A member of the Class of 2024, O’Neill started her own Juice Pod store.

First founded in Avalon, New Jersey, Juice Pod specializes in serving healthy and nutritious menu items with the goal of serving and nourishing the community. Since its inception, 15 more stores have popped up in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida. In the last few months, one of them became O’Neill’s.

O’Neill began her Juice Pod journey throughout her senior year of high school. It was in the chain’s store in Villanova, Pennsylvania, that she fell in love with running the store and the atmosphere of the business.

She was awarded a particularly exciting opportunity when the owner of the Villanova location went down to New Jersey to run an alternate location, leaving O’Neill in charge of her home store. O’Neill thrived in the role, and that’s when the idea of franchising crossed her mind.

After talking to the owners and running some numbers, O’Neill and her parents found a spot in Havertown, Pennsylvania. They all signed the lease during O’Neill’s final semester of school and were able to open the new location just two weeks after graduation.

“I quite literally would not have been able to do this without them,” O’Neill told Onward State. “I’m very thankful that they were able to invest in me.”

She immediately jumped into working with the behind-the-scenes responsibilities and supply chain management, which were different skills than she had applied during her previous years of work in the company.

Working as a family unit, O’Neill’s father assists with a lot of the account management tasks, while her mother helps with customers and fosters the creative vision to get new faces in the door.

As for her day-to-day fuel and motivation, O’Neill sourced it back to the mindset and drive she experienced at Penn State.

“I have always loved giving back to others and doing things for other people. My love language is gift-giving, and THON really helped me pursue that and do something for other people that was positive,” said O’Neill.

With THON, O’Neill served on a hospitality committee for three of her four years at Penn State and then was an independent dancer during her senior year at THON in 2024. Her journey as a dancer helped to show her the importance of networking, fundraising, and community.

Just as she found her community in THON, O’Neill realized the vital role community plays in a small business.

O’Neill is also able to put her advertising degree to good use in her new role. While learning in the classroom is necessary, she put a huge emphasis on how important life skills and problem-solving tactics have been in her managing role.

She attributed a lot of these skills to her Introduction to Human Development and Family Studies class taught by Molly Countermine. The class focuses on why people think and act in certain ways and how the mind develops as humans age. Combined with other classes about personal growth, O’Neill felt prepared after graduation to tackle any customer service problems.

Combining prior skills, classes, and her degree together, O’Neill has created the perfect recipe for success.

“I think that this feels very empowering to me, to just have graduated from college, and I feel very thankful that I was able to open my own store and remember that hard work pays off,” said O’Neill.

While the job is rewarding, O’Neill finds herself working every weekday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. She aids in prepping and closing down the store, placing supply orders, and managing employees.

O’Neill’s happy to jump in and help out in the prep line when things get busy around lunch and loves to ensure her customers are being helped in a friendly, positive manner. The new location is surrounded by grocery stores and gyms, emphasizing the importance of creating relationships with a key customer demographic.

“The whole experience has really shown me that if you put your mind to something and you work really hard, you can do it,” O’Neill said. “I think that my favorite part about all of this is all of the connections that I’ve made with different customers and the relationships that I’ve built from it.”

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If you’re running into a Juice Pod anytime soon, O’Neill recommends her favorites: an Avo-Cranberry Wrap and the Nutter Butter smoothie. You can find O’Neill’s store online here or swing by in-person at 30 Brookline Blvd., Havertown, Pennsylvania.