Manolo’s Words at Small Business Market, Wells Fargo Championship

Special thanks to The Foundation of the Carolinas and Beyond Open.

By Manolo Betancur / CEO and Founder of Manolo´s Bakery

Charlotte, North Carolina. May 2. 2023

For many of you this could be a regular day in your lives.  To me – to Manolo’s Bakery, it is a day when a dream comes true. Wells Fargo has made this possible for me and to other small businesses. Wells Fargo is giving light to those whom society too many times places in the shadows. You are letting us know that we are not alone, and that you care about us.

Wells Fargo, you are writing a new chapter in America, you are on the right track to change the world. 

Now, you have me as part of your world – and I have you in my heart.

It took me 23 years to be here. It took me 23 years of hard work and not giving up. Too many people and businesses have told me that I am too small for them, that I was not good enough. That I am crazy, dreaming of being someone.

Now, because of you, because of the Foundation of the Carolinas and Beyond Open, I can say: 

I am big enough to be part of a Wells Fargo Championship. 

I am good enough to be welcome at Quail Hollow Country Club. 

I am crazy because I am the American dream. 

I am someone because I am the face of a new America. 

I am a baker who owns a small business in East Charlotte, where bread is made with love and too many times with tears – and above all, it is made in America by immigrants’ hands.   

This is a new beginning, this is hope, this is light; this is a message to America’s big corporations, this is a message to all the CEOs and people in power: 

Yes, it is possible to work with small businesses. 

Yes, it is possible to give opportunities to minorities. 

And yes, it is possible to make profits and create community at the same time. 

Yes, you are helping us achieve our mission at the bakery: We are Our Bread, We Stand for Our People, We Believe in Our Future.

Please do not forget there are millions of businesses like mine who are also waiting for opportunities like this. Please do not give up on us. 

Remember we are in the land where the biggest corporations of the world were created in a garage, where ideas have more power than money and where we all believe and feel that we are free to work for a better future. Once again, I want to say thank you to Wells Fargo for making this dream come true.  Thank you Foundation for the Carolinas and Beyond Open for the grant. 

Now, I will be able to double my cake production and my team will be able to work this coming summer at 70 degrees and not at 100 degrees. 

A big thank you to all of those who had always supported me, especially, my wife, my kids, my family, my team and my mentors.

Thanks to God and the souls that go daily to our businesses.

Finally, I want to say to those children who are watching golf on a screen and believing that it is impossible to be in a place like this. 

Do not let anyone, OR any system, and not even yourself tell you that you can’t reach your dreams.  You are the creator of your future, you are in America, you are the American dream… 

You are in a land where as you create value for others, you create your opportunities.

Thank you,

Manolo Betancur

CEO  Manolo´s Bakery

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