Success Stories

Justin Friedman – Wild Bird Store
“So, in as much as we have it, I define success as some amount of happiness and the ability to have a full life.” June 13, 2025

Si Bok Blue Shaolin Kung Fu Academy ‘Girl Power’
“Honestly, for myself, I have always defined success as consistent growth. I feel that goes hand in hand with the way that we teach as well.  I never want to reach a point where I go, ‘yeah I’m done’. I’m always learning. I am always finding ways to incorporate the things that I teach into lessons for myself. My kids teach me more than I teach them.
Success for me is  constantly moving forward to be able to own up to my mistakes, acknowledge them, and move forward for as long as I live.” June 13, 2025

Peter James, Area Director of Rudy’s Bar-B-Q
“Our goal is to always take care of the guests… We just feel that if we take good care of the guests, we get good word-of-mouth advertisement. Once we hear that good buzz within our community, we feel like we are doing good, and it has been a success. Once we start seeing those same people coming in day in and day out and weekly, we build our relationship, and we feel like we are doing a great job.
The reason why we don’t open a lot of Rudy’s back-to-back-to-back is that we like to make sure we are ready. Ready to take care of the guests and the community, and be involved.
So, I think success is promoting within and building within and taking care of the guests, and being a part of the community. Once they know who we are, we have succeeded.” June 6, 2025

Robert and Terry Villelas, Owners of Young Donuts by Rise and Shine
“The best part of owning a donut shop for me is meeting people and helping out,” said Robert.

“At the end of the day, for me, success is bringing a smile to someone. I meet so many individuals from different parts of our country, or from out of the country, and it’s just a pleasure to meet them.
Like, right now, I am learning Italian from one customer. He speaks Italian. He comes and gets his burrito, he gets his donut holes, he gets his variety of donuts once in a while, sometimes he shows up three times out of the week. And just learning his language, it is new to me, I don’t have to go to Italy or take a class to learn it. I am learning it here.
It is just having that one-to-one communication with another human being,” said Terry.

“I thought making donuts was fascinating because it is an art form in itself. I have a background in art. I love to draw and paint. I thought this would go hand in hand. Being creative with another sense of direction, but you can eat the art,” said Robert. June 6, 2025

Dr. Jonathan Scott Crider, Director of External Relations, Fox Tucson Theatre
“Success to me means realizing the mission that you set out. The Fox’s mission is to make connections with people and make Tucson proud.
Every time I walk into the Theatre with a full house I am just reminded that all the work is worth it to have the collective people enjoying the work.” May 30, 2025

Jesus Acuña with his wife Annette, Owners of Resilient Fitness
“I think a big part of success in the business for both of us has been grit.
Just being able to put in the time, put in the work, shake the hands, meet with the people, meeting adversity, going through the obstacles, and really kind of making the decision that we are going to find a way to make it work.
When we opened up the gym in late 2019, eight months later, Covid hit, and we had to shut down.
I think I lost sleep one night. And then we woke up and we were like nope! We are going to go online! We are going to hand off equipment to the members who are going to work at home. When we reopened, we figured out how to get folks in and moving to the next location.
For me it was, I’m going to work out at the park! You’re going to work out in my garage!
I have been thankful enough that people have followed us since the beginning!
I think of Rhonda, she has been with us from the park to the garage to the gyms and she has probably been with us as long as Eli has been born, ten plus years for our members.
I think the other component of success has been the relationships.
When we were online, we found that was the hardest part, how to establish that relationship and keep that relationship.
So, grit, tenacity, and relationships have been a big part of it. May 30, 2025