OGDEN, Utah — The Suazo Business Center has opened a new location in Ogden in hopes of helping more businesses and residents in undeserved communities.
"As we start looking at the demographics it kind of seems overdue,” Silvia Castro, Executive Director Suazo Business Center said. “One third of the population here in Ogden city is minority yet there weren’t any really resources that were specifically designed for the minority community.”
The center's mission is to help develop and empower the Latino/Hispanic and other underserved communities. They provide assistance to help existing and potential minority entrepreneurs succeed and build wealth. Castro says that this new center will help them fulfill their mission more effectively.
“Because they have different needs… they need different resources” Castro said. "We help a lot of people that have an idea… but they are afraid to know what to do with it.”
On Wednesday, the group held a ribbon cutting and invited businesses in the community to see what resources the center will offer.
One of those in attendance was Leon Araujo, a success story of the center from Ogden.
He was one of the few from the Ogden area that took advantage of the center's services in Salt Lake and is now working as an advisor at their new location.
“It's pretty important for Ogden I think,” Araujo said. “Many of these people are planning to open a business in different industries.”
The services are in partnership with Ogden City Business Development and the office is located at the city’s Business Information Center.
With the pandemic impact on many businesses and minority communities, the new services could not be more timely.
“What we saw was that the minority community was very heavily impacted” Silvia Castro says adding about the hospitality and service industry “A lot of those industries are predominantly Latino.”
Click here to find out more about the center.
