In the heart of Charlotte, North Carolina, one baker has been quietly spreading sweetness where it’s needed most.
For more than 12 years, Manolo Betancur, owner of Manolo’s Bakery, has been delivering free birthday cakes to people experiencing homelessness. But to him, they’re more than that. “We don’t call them ‘homeless,’” he says. “They’re our neighbors.”
Betancur, who moved from Colombia 25 years ago, knows what it means to start from scratch. “I arrived to America 25 years ago, and I didn’t speak any English, and I didn’t have any money in my pocket,” he tells TODAY.com. After attending college in Tennessee, he got married, moved to North Carolina, and bought his bakery in 2005. “We are the oldest immigrant Latino bakery in the Carolinas,” he says proudly.
His shop has become known for its tres leches, tartaleta, and cheesecakes, but also for the cakes he gives away. The idea began when Betancur reached out to Raise You Up Ministries, a local nonprofit serving the chronically homeless, to ask where they were getting cakes for birthdays. When he heard the answer was “nowhere,” he offered to help.
Now, whenever a birthday comes up, his bakery prepares vanilla sheet cakes, some with caramel, some with peaches inside. “To me, that was the coolest idea ever, because nobody thinks about their birthdays,” Betancur says.
This year, his bakery reached a heartfelt milestone: their 300th donated cake. But for Betancur, one delivery stands out above the rest.
“Somebody from the nonprofit approached me one day and said, ‘Manolo, are you the cake guy?’” he recalls. When he said yes, they told him the last person who received one of his cakes cried, saying it was the first time he’d ever had a birthday cake in his life.
Betancur still thinks about that moment. “That was the most important cake in this bakery.”
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