North Texans Show Love to Salt Lake City Pastry Shop

A little pastry shop owned by two brothers in Salt Lake City, Utah, is getting a lot of Texas love. And because of its unlikely Texas connections, thousands of dollars have been raised to keep their doors open.  

Al and Bob Walkenhorst, 92 and 88 years young, have owned Carol’s Bakery since 1948. Just like many small businesses across the country, they’ve been hit hard by the pandemic.

But with the help of the community, and the power of social media, help has come from all over the country including from here in North Texas.

Bob’s granddaughter, MacKenzie Thomas, who now lives in San Antonio, has a childhood friend, Jamie Crable, who lives here in North Texas.

Jamie heard about Al and Bob’s story on Instagram, and turns out, that Instagram post was shared by Brandi Merritt, a North Texas social media influencer who lives in Wylie.  

North Texans, Jamie and Brandi are close friends.

“So when I saw this story, I reached out to my friend and said, hey, I know I’m not local to the Salt Lake City area, which is where Carol’s Bakery shop is, but I said, I would still love to share it, and any of my followers in that area, I would love for them to go support it, said Brandi Merritt who has over 104,000 followers on Instagram. “He said absolutely, please share. So I shared the story, and I just started getting tons of messages in, saying how can we help.”

They set up a GoFundMe page, and in less than 12 hours, over $11,000 was raised for Al and Bob’s bakery. To date, more than $25,000 has been donated from people across the country.

Donations are still being accepted online.