Like many heroes, Mary Sol Gonzalez isn’t sure why she was selected to be featured in the pages of Boca magazine. “Why me?” she asks, sipping from a mug that reads “We’re all in this together.” Perhaps it’s winning the 2023 U.S. Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteer Service; working as a consultant for nonprofits; her involvement with the YMCA, Junior League of Boca Raton, Habitat for Humanity, the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce (including its Golden Bell Education Foundation), and Hispanic Heritage Chamber of Commerce; serving as a community captain for the Boca Raton Bowl; or winning the Chamber’s DIAMOND Award in 2015.
Most of all, there’s the Hispanic Entrepreneur Initiative (HEI), an organization she founded that empowers immigrant business owners as they navigate a new country and business landscape.
“For Americans, entrepreneurship is a decision. ‘Oh, I’m going to start a business; if it doesn’t work, maybe I’ll go back to work,’” Gonzalez says. “But when you are 50, you are new in the country, maybe your English is not that perfect, it is a need. It is the only way you can produce money.”
Born and raised in Venezuela, Gonzalez moved to the United States shortly after she married her husband, Abilio, at 23. His work took them around the country and the world, including a stint in the Philippines. When they finally settled in Boca Raton 18 years ago, she was eager to create roots, and she entrenched herself in the civic and nonprofit world. She opened a sign business, and it was the lessons she learned here, as well as the contacts she made through the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce, that launched her community involvement.
Gonzalez saw how immigrants needed guidance on starting a business in their new country; she points to a statistic from AARP that 75 percent of Latinos in the country have fallen prey to scams. She teamed up with a friend, Yulimar Trumbo, to found HEI, but their very first training was shut down due to COVID. They persevered, knowing that business owners needed their guidance now more than ever. Today, 45 participants have graduated from HEI’s Empowering the American Dream program, a nine-week course that includes mapping their business plan, entrepreneur roundtables, applying for a Small Business Administration loan, and understanding the rules of doing business in the United States.
“We are women who are immigrants, and we have been business owners,” she says. “So we understand the challenges.”
PHILANTHROPIC ORIGINS: I think that my heart is into nonprofits because of my father. He always wanted to give back to the community, help in any way. He was a lawyer, but he ended up helping people beyond their case, and I always saw that.
BIGGEST LESSON: I think the most important thing I learned—that is not only in business, but in life in general—[is] that everything is about relationships … It’s about creating community, and not only the relationships that will help you sell and do this, but it’s also [those] relationships about being part of the community. A lot of the business owners—and I understand, they are so busy, they are in the business—they forget to be part of the larger community. And I think you can never forget that balance.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR: We have our symposium on September 27. This is the third year; it’s going to be here at Lynn [University], and it’s for 250 entrepreneurs all day. We have 15 speakers and keynotes, and we call it our educational gala. … We still want this year to be super successful and be able to raise funds for the organization to continue providing the services.
This Hometown Hero story is from the July/August 2024 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
