It was 2014, and Chung was tired of traveling for work. The business consultant’s job required him to travel around the globe, but Chung was tired of sitting in airports and sleeping in hotels. He wanted to work closer to home and be able to spend more time with his kids. Armed with years of professional experience in the finance sector, Chung began to research various industries, opportunities, and trends to plot his next career step. 

Chung H Lee, Managing Member of Alpha Care Supply // Photo credit: Chung H Lee

It didn’t take long for something to catch Chung’s attention: the United States’ population is aging. More so, as demographics continue to shift and America grays, more and more older Americans are wanting to “age in place.” That means that instead of selling their house and buying a condo in Florida or moving into an assisted living facility, most people want to stay closer to friends and family and remain in their home. According to a recent AARP survey, 77% of adults 50 and older want to age in place — a percentage that has been consistent for over 10 years. However, in order to safely and comfortably age in place, people often need to make adjustments to their homes, including modifications like rails, ramps, and walk-in showers.

Chung was intrigued. He liked the idea of working in healthcare and providing a service to people in need, but he wasn’t sure where he could carve out a niche for himself in the market. That’s when Chung met the owners of Alpha Care Supply, a durable medical equipment (DME) company serving the New York metropolitan area. Although Alpha Care Supply’s founders started the business in 1992, they were nearing retirement age and wanted to sell the company. Chung stepped forward as an interested buyer, and over a six-month period, the company’s founders transitioned Alpha Care Supply over to him. 

An Alpha Care Supply project // Photo credit: Chung H Lee

From day one, Chung set out to expand Alpha Care Supply’s operations to offer a full range of products. That meant becoming a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist (CAPS) through the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and providing a full range of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility products. Prior to purchasing the business, the company primarily offered compliant wheelchair ramps and indoor/outdoor stair lifts; however, Chung expanded that list of products to include vertical platform lifts, patient handling lifts, and home elevators. Alpha Care Supply even provides full ADA bathroom and kitchen modifications, as well as broader home renovation projects, to help create safe and independent living environments for customers.

According to Chung, it took about 18 months to get his feet underneath him at Alpha Care Supply. “Obviously, it was something new,” he said. “It’s a big move and a challenge going from a corporate environment to now running a small business. As a small business owner, you’re responsible for everything, and I had a lot of things to learn.”

Two factors contributed to that steep learning curve. First, the company works with residential and commercial customers experiencing (or planning to experience) mobility or accessibility concerns: nurses, doctors, insurance companies, concerned children, obstinate spouses, other small business owners, city employees, lawyers, nonprofits, and third-party workers’ compensation administrators. Given that stunning breadth of customers, it’s no surprise that it took time for Chung to learn the nuances of his diverse customer base. Second, Alpha Care Supply receives payments from its commercial clients (i.e. 15% of its business) on a delayed timeline. It typically takes 30 days after a commercial project is completed (e.g. ramps and wheelchair lifts are installed in places like city parks, building lobbies, and restaurant bathrooms) before Alpha Care Supply gets paid. “In terms of funding your operation as a small business owner, getting paid is your bloodline,” Chung said. “That’s been an ongoing challenge for us.”

Avoiding the Cracks

By October of 2021, however, there was a new — and much more daunting — challenge on the horizon. For the first time, Chung and his team weren’t able to meet their inventory needs because of global supply chain disruptions. Faced with the same supply chain issues, manufacturers began to demand more up-front money from buyers like Chung. Whichever businesses could meet the manufacturers’ demands were then first in line to get the kind of ADA equipment and parts that are central to Alpha Care Supply’s operations. Without the necessary cash, Chung was sent scrambling to try to secure the inventory his small business needed to survive.

Fortunately, that’s when Chung received a call from Pursuit Community Finance, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that serves minority- and women-owned businesses across New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. CNote partners with CDFIs like Pursuit through its Wisdom Fund and Flagship Fund, which invest in small business owners like Chung in communities around the country. 

Chung had first learned about Pursuit Lending through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program; however, the​​ call from Pursuit’s Leo Zhang was completely unexpected. With Leo’s help, Chung was able to apply for and receive two loans through the CDFI, including one from the New York Forward Loan Fund, which was set up to help New York small businesses reopen after the COVID-19 outbreak. Together, the two loans ensured that Alpha Care Supply had the inventory it needed to get through 2021. “Pursuit was instrumental in helping us procure and shore up our inventory,” Chung said. “They helped us get funding so quickly, which was refreshing and energizing.”

For Chung, it felt particularly “refreshing and energizing” to work with Pursuit Lending because Alpha Care Supply’s go-to big bank wasn’t agile enough to step up for the small business when it needed it most. According to Chung, between everything Pursuit has been able to offer him — including new lending products and small business coaching — and his perennial frustrations with his bank, he’s now a CDFI believer. “The more opportunities small business owners have to connect with CDFIs, the better,” he said, “because it’s easy to fall through the cracks and not recover. For me, having Pursuit is good for my business because I can bounce ideas off of them and discuss things with them that have nothing to do with lending. They have somebody there to listen and give feedback, and that’s a great help.”

The Alpha Care Supply team // Photo credit: Chung H Lee

Today, Alpha Care Supply has about 20 employees covering installations, repairs, sales, construction, and operations. Considering the company’s service footprint includes approximately 16 million people, that means that Chung’s team is both small and mighty. While he’s pleased with the growth and maturation his business has experienced since he bought it nearly eight years ago, Chung is arguably happier with the work that his employees are doing day in and day out to make a difference in people’s lives. “Unless you’re in their shoes,” Chung said, “it’s hard to fathom what sort of challenges our customers face on a daily basis. My team bends over backwards to get things up and running beautifully and to make a difference, and it leaves people in tears. For me, those are the most exciting days as a small business owner.”

Learn More:

• Alpha Care Supply is a provider of ADA accessibility equipment based in Nassau County for nearly 25 years serving the NY metro area, including the five boroughs, Westchester, Rockland, Yonkers, Nassau, Suffolk counties, and New Jersey encompassing over 16MM in population. 
• Pursuit Community Finance, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that provides businesses with affordable small business loans and resources so that they can reach higher, transform and grow.
• CNote is a women-led investment platform that empowers individuals and institutions to invest locally to further economic equality, racial justice, gender equity, and address climate change.

Catherine Dorsey had always dreamed of becoming a nurse. In 2016, the Detroit resident took a step closer to fulfilling her dream by beginning medical school in Ohio. And while she worked through the demanding courses, another difficulty materialized: her rapidly accumulating bills. 

In order to pay for her medical school loans, car loans, and other miscellaneous expenses, Catherine was forced to borrow on her credit cards. To make matters even worse, Catherine had taken out those loans from a predatory lender. 

“The first loan that I got actually wasn’t enough for me to do everything I needed to do. So then I had another one just to get enough money to move and get to school. I wasn’t thinking about rates and terms. I was just thinking that I needed money fast. I have to get gas. I have to get food. I have to get to work.” 

The One Detroit Credit Union employees that helped Catherine Dorsey and Sandy Waldrip.

Catherine’s expertise was in people’s wellbeing, not in finance. It wasn’t until the bills started coming in that she noticed something was wrong. On a day off, she sat down and calculated the numbers. She realized quickly that the numbers were high. Very high. One the first loan of $4,000, Catherine would be paying almost $12,000. On the second loan of $3000, she would be paying $10,000: A $22,000 total from a loan of just $7000. 

Fortunately, Catherine had been a One Detroit Credit Union member since 2017. One Detroit Credit Union is a Detroit-based low-income designated credit union that has been serving the local community since 1935. One Detroit is a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and Minority-Depository Institution (MDI). CNote partners with credit unions like One Detroit across the country through its Impact Cash™ Solution, empowering individuals like Catherine who are looking to lead healthier financial lives. 

When Catherine walked into the door of One Detroit Credit Union in 2021 looking for help making payments on her predatory loans, she saw a brochure on the teller’s desk for a credit building loan. The teller informed her that the program was a way for individuals to borrow money using their own savings as collateral to help improve credit scores and build credit history. 

Sarneisa Whigham, the Branch Manager at One Detroit Credit Union who assisted Catherine Dorsey and Sandy Waldrip.

Catherine had many questions, all of which the teller answered thoroughly and patiently. Eventually, she recommended that Catherine speak with a branch manager for a full rundown on all the products and services that One Detroit offered that might help her. 

When the branch manager reviewed Catherine’s case, She was shocked. “Has anybody ever talked to you about consolidating your debt?” She asked. No one ever had. So the branch manager explained how One Detroit could potentially help her save thousands of dollars over the life of her loan. It seemed too good to be true. At the end of their meeting Catherine filled out several forms and was told that they would be in touch.

The call came just a few days later, and she had been approved. Catherine went from paying nearly $1000 a month to $320. “I was crying. I couldn’t believe it. I kept asking- are you sure? Are you sure?” 

Prior to the loan consolidation, all Catherine was able to do was work to pay the bills. After One Detroit stepped in, Catherine started saving and making purchases that she had been holding off on for years. 

Sarneisa Whigham, Branch Manager, and Hank Hubbard, President and CEO of One Detroit Credit Union

A Second Chance

One Detroit Credit Union’s field of membership is the entire city of Detroit. In order to be responsive to the needs of all those potential members, the credit union begins with the problems that members most commonly face and then designs the products or services which will alleviate those problems. 

For Sandy Waldrip, a lifelong Detroit resident and healthcare administrator, this philosophy ended up having a profound impact on her life. In 2018, Sandy lost her job due to an organizational restructuring and went from a six-figure salary to pulling unemployment. To make matters even more challenging, her mother got sick, and Sandy had to help take care of her for over a year. Payments fell behind, and Sandy’s credit score took a serious hit. 

When Sandy was able to start looking for another job, she knew that she would need a new and reliable car. Her search was complicated, however, by soaring interest rates on all makes and models due to her lowered credit score. When she finally selected a car, it was the dealer himself who recommended that Sandy go to One Detroit, as he had heard they had a strong refinancing program. 

Initially, Sandy applied for a consolidation loan. She was approved in a matter of days, and One Detroit suggested that she apply to Refi My Ride, their auto loan refinancing program. The program refinances auto loans at half of whatever interest rate the member is currently paying (sometimes over 20%) with the same term. For Sandy, that meant savings of $115 a month or $9000 over the life of her loan. 

And while Sandy is grateful for her new car and the reduced rate she received, she is most appreciative that One Detroit Credit Union took the time to look at her whole story. 

“People don’t understand that life happens. And while you would like to have perfect credit, sometimes things turn around and it just can’t happen. And I understand, some banks or credit unions won’t want to invest in you. But I appreciate the fact that One Detroit looked beyond just my credit score and gave me that second chance.” 

Learn More:

• One Detroit Credit Union is a Detroit-based low-income designated credit union that has been serving the local community since 1935. One Detroit is a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and Minority-Depository Institution (MDI)
• CNote is a women-led investment platform that empowers individuals and institutions to invest locally to further economic equality, racial justice, gender equity, and address climate change.

Bill Rose recently celebrated a big milestone: 34 years of sobriety. That also happens to be nearly how long Bill has been active in rehabilitation facilities. Six months into his recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, Bill began volunteering in drug treatment programs. At the time, he worked for a local oil company, but he also helped out at a hospital-based inpatient recovery program near where he lived in Louisiana. When Bill was laid off from his job in 1989, his life could have spiraled back to late nights out and high-risk activities; however, instead, Bill continued forward on his path of recovery. 

Bill Rose, Executive Director of CADA

That’s because Bill was connected with Dan Talley, the Executive Director of The Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse of Northwest Louisiana (CADA). Dan’s wife, Bonnie, worked at the hospital where Bill volunteered, and when she heard that Bill was out of work, she introduced the two to each other. One week later, Bill was a full-time CADA employee. “CADA embraced me and gave me a place to land,” said Bill. “They helped to mentor me, support my recovery, and keep me in a safe place, and my career kind of took off from there.”

CADA was established in 1958. Since then, the nonprofit private health organization has continuously provided substance abuse and addiction treatment services to Northwest Louisiana. Today, CADA offers 12 programs out of four facilities that serve Shreveport, Bossier, Many, and many rural areas across Louisiana, including at every horse racetrack in the state. The nonprofit prides itself on offering services to anyone, including adults and teens, regardless of their ability to pay. CADA is able to do this through a wide variety of payment options that include Medicaid, private insurance, and, in some cases, state funding.

According to Bill, CADA helped him get into counseling, and after five or six years, he left the nonprofit to pursue opportunities that he never would have had without Dan Talley’s guidance and CADA’s support. However, in 1998, when a management position opened up at CADA, Bill didn’t have to think twice about whether or not to apply. He got the job, returned to CADA, and Dan Talley became his boss. Bill’s been at CADA ever since.

Over the years, Bill has served a number of roles at CADA. He’s been a program manager of the nonprofit’s drug court program, helping clients to avoid jail time by coaching them through an intensive, long-term recovery path. Additionally, Bill was a program director at one of CADA’s detox centers, during which time he was also responsible for a 71-bed care facility. More recently, since early 2012, Bill has served as CADA’s Executive Director, leading a team of roughly 100, which includes full-time, part-time, and contracted employees.

According to Bill, although it wasn’t easy to transition away from counseling and programming, he felt like stepping in to serve as executive director was something he needed to do. “Dan Talley left such an impression on me,” Bill said. “For whatever reason, he took an interest in my recovery and taught me how to be a counselor, and when he died, I said that I was going to commit myself to doing whatever CADA needed me to do.”

Bill Rose and Walter Abney, a Peer Support Specialist

Although these days Bill spends most of his time working with CADA’s accounting department, human resources staff members, and development team, he also gets to work closely with Susan Garcia, CADA’s Director of Client Relations and Engagement. Like Bill, and roughly half of CADA’s workforce, Susan is in recovery. However, when Susan first walked through CADA’s doors, she was wearing shackles. She completed CADA’s recovery program, applied for a cook job at the nonprofit, and steadily climbed the ranks to her current position. Susan played a vital role in CADA opening a location in Many, her rural hometown where she knew firsthand that there was a need for addiction recovery services. Today, Susan holds the honor of being Louisiana’s Peer Recovery Support Specialist of the Year.

“I still get chill bumps when I think about how Susan walked into our facility literally in shackles and now she’s in a position probably more than me to help people recover,” said Bill. “That story never gets old. That’s the cool part of being sober for 34 years: it’s to see the light come on in a person that’s broken, and their lives start progressing along in a manner that they didn’t even imagine.” 

The Financial Piece of Recovery

Two years ago, Susan happened to meet Cyndi Phillips at a fundraiser event with a CADA alumni group. Cyndi is the Director of Community Development at ANECA Federal Credit Union, a Louisiana-based credit union that first opened in 1939. CNote invests Impact Cash^TM dollars in mission-driven and FDIC- and NCUA-insured credit union partners like ANECA, generating returns on institutional investors’ cash allocations while supporting financially underserved communities across the country.

Cyndi and Susan met for lunch to discuss how they might work together, and ever since, ANECA has been one of CADA’s most supportive community partners. According to Susan, the credit union participates in just about every event that CADA hosts, and Cyndi is a regular fixture at CADA’s open houses and weekly Friday graduations, at which the credit union supplies the caps and gowns. “ANECA is a joy to work with,” Susan said, “and Cyndi supports everything we do.”

Susan Garcia and Tine Jolley, HR Manager at CADA

Importantly, ANECA also offers CADA clients financial literacy classes, which include training on how to detect and avoid predatory lending. Additionally, ANECA helps to get CADA clients on the path to opening up checking and savings accounts, as well as improving their credit scores. These are vital services, considering that many of CADA’s clients don’t have a state-issued identification card or driver’s license and would otherwise be unable to open a bank account. 

According to Bill, giving CADA’s clients the opportunity to take their cash and put it safely into an ANECA account is an important part of the recovery journey. “Money can be a trigger,” he said, “so for a big percentage of the folks that we treat, it’s not a good practice to keep money in your pocket. Bringing in a lending institution like ANECA has been beneficial for folks getting on their feet.” 

That was the case for Susan. According to her, before she was sober, and even early into her recovery, she thought that having a bank account was out of reach. However, thankfully, she was given the opportunity to open an account: a seemingly small accomplishment that helped to propel her forward in her recovery. That’s because, as she described it, having a bank account boosted her self-esteem and made her feel like a human again.

“Addiction has a significant impact in every area of a person’s life, including banking,” said Bill. “When we’re able to help someone get that first checking or savings account, do you know what it does for their self-esteem and self-worth? I can’t put a dollar value to it. The financial piece is a big part of the puzzle of trying to get some stability in life, and it’s amazing to see how ANECA’s work plays a part in people’s recovery.”

Learn More

• The Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse of Northwest Louisiana (CADA)  is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, private health organization providing substance abuse services.
• ANECA Federal Credit Union, a Louisiana-based credit union that first opened in 1939.
• CNote –CNote is a women-led impact platform on a mission to close the wealth gap through financial innovation. Using the power of technology and a community-first framework, CNote enables corporations and individuals to efficiently invest at scale in fixed income and time deposit products that advance economic equality, racial justice, gender equity, and climate change initiatives.

Terri-Nichelle Bradley used to be frustrated with her job. What had begun as an exciting career with Sesame Street Live had shifted to working for a multi-national public relations agency. If handling corporate crisis communications wasn’t enough, Terri-Nichelle also had to carry the burden of being the senior-most Black woman at the company. She was tokenized by her white colleagues and saddled with the weight of expectation from her junior Black peers. According to Terri-Nichelle, she used to sit in her car every day and cry. She was miserable, and eventually, she was fired.

That’s when a 40-year-old Terri-Nichelle went on a quest to find her purpose — luckily, she didn’t have to travel far. On a popular mountaintop outside of Atlanta, Terri-Nichelle put the question “what am I supposed to be doing?” out into the ether. The answer she received was “look at your life.” Her subsequent reflections took her back to her Minnesotan childhood, where Terri-Nichelle’s mother surrounded her family with Black art and kept Black magazines on the coffee table. Even though she wasn’t necessarily surrounded by neighbors who looked like her, Terri-Nichelle grew up knowing that Black people could be successful. As a child, that knowledge allowed her to dream.

As Terri-Nichelle looked back at the Black representation that had been so integral to her upbringing, she had her mountaintop aha moment. As a mother of four, she’d been hearing more and more about the leaky STEAM pipeline — the educational pathway for students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics in which underrepresented minorities, including women, often fall through the cracks. Terri-Nichelle wondered what she could do to reverse that trend. After some research, she decided to start Brown Toy Box, an educational play-kit company that makes toys to get BIPOC kids excited about STEAM careers.

Terri-Nichelle launched her company as a subscription service in October of 2017. By June the following year, she shut it down. According to her, she didn’t have the requisite business acumen, which meant that Brown Toy Box had been destined to fail fast from the beginning. However, Terri-Nichelle wasn’t discouraged. She’d learned about her customers and the market, and she was willing to give it another shot. “I said to myself, ‘if you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it right,” Terri-Nichelle said. “‘You’re going to have to do the training so that you can be very intentional and purposeful about how you’re going to relaunch this business.’”

Try, Try Again

Terri-Nichelle did just that. In total, she participated in eight incubator and accelerator programs. Terri-Nichelle decided to evolve away from subscription boxes, and although she still wanted to build her business around educational kits, she wanted to be “a creator of product, instead of a curator of product,” as she puts it. Despite the fact that she never wrote a book about astronomy or made puzzles about marine biology, Terri-Nichelle believed that, ultimately, it was better to believe in herself rather than to rely upon other small business owners to make Brown Toy Box work. “I’d never created anything like this before,” she said, laughing. “But I was like, ‘I can do it.’ It’s the audacity of just believing in yourself.”

Come the beginning of 2019, Terri-Nichelle was ready to make her second attempt at Brown Toy Box. She’d hired a toy designer, she’d created the Dadisi Academy crew (Black students at a fictitious school named after the Swahili word for “curious”), and she’d designed themed kits around subjects like chemistry, robotics, and coding. Initially, Brown Toy Box returned to selling primarily to schools, however, the company also began to sell direct-to-consumer. That’s when COVID-19 hit. The pandemic effectively paused all of Terri-Nichelle’s business operations. As schools shifted to remote learning, budgets were redistributed to provide hotspots and laptops for students, not educational kits. 

That’s when Terri-Nichelle got scrappy. She stopped paying herself and she grew her business into a full-scale educational toy manufacturing company that produces and curates STEAM toys and experiences for children, grades pre-k through 6th. Every toy, game, activity, piece of media, and DIY experience focuses on promoting inclusivity, celebrating Black children, cultivating curiosity, normalizing Black excellence, and building skills that create pathways to prosperous careers. When schools were once again ready to sign contracts and distribute Brown Toy Box kits to students in August 2020, so was Terri-Nichelle. “It’s about all kids having access to these toys,” she said, “because that’s how we’re going to change the narrative, and that’s how we’re going to make sure that Black people aren’t just seen as the athletes and entertainers.”

On Target

In January 2021, Terri-Nichelle got her biggest opportunity yet — pitching the toy buyers at Target Corporation. The meeting was on a Friday, and on the following Monday, Terri-Nichelle got the call: the retail giant wanted Brown Toy Box in every one of its stores. It was wonderful news, but it was also daunting. Despite previous funding she received from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund and SheEO that helped her to grow during the pandemic, Terri-Nichelle didn’t have the money to ramp up production to meet demand — Target wanted nearly 40,000 kits. Terri-Nichelle reached out to her network to fundraise. “We didn’t have enough revenue to qualify for a bank loan,” she said. “One of my mentors who leads a bank told me ‘we won’t look at you for another couple of years.’”

Fortunately, Terri-Nichelle had previously been co-located in an incubator with Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs (ACE), a Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) that works in 68 counties in Georgia. CNote partners with CDFIs like ACE in communities across America, funding loans to small businesses, providing technical assistance, and empowering local entrepreneurs like Terri-Nichelle. 

Terri-Nichelle reached out to ACE, and the CDFI was able to get the toy manufacturer the necessary financing needed to execute the Target deal. Although the larger deal was eventually underwritten by many participating institutions, ACE funded the first $500,000 to Terri-Nichelle, which allowed Brown Toy Box to secure the inventory needed to enter 1,757 Target stores. However, in addition to lending, the CDFI’s founder and CEO, Grace Fricks, became a vocal advocate for Terri-Nichelle, and it helped to bring other Atlanta partners — including the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative, 1863 Ventures, and Invest Atlanta — to the table to provide additional funding for Brown Toy Box’s inventory rollout across the country. 

“The reason that we are where we are right now is because we were able to get the capital,” Terri-Nichelle said. “That happened because some really strong women in the investment and finance sectors really showed up for me. So many small businesses have to leave Atlanta, and these women said ‘we want to change that narrative: we don’t want entrepreneurs to have to leave this city in order to make things happen. Women-owned businesses need that type of advocacy, because you don’t usually find it.”

Target Practice for the Future

According to Terri-Nichelle, once the ball started rolling, it never stopped. With funding in one hand and Target purchase orders in the other, she set out to secure office space, forge new partnerships, and grow her team. That’s when ACE provided Terri-Nichelle with technical assistance: the CDFI advised her on hiring and it reviewed contracts for her, particularly as she built out her executive team. “I’d never hired like this before,” she said, “so they were able to use their expertise to help me think through those important things.”

Terri-Nichelle fulfilled every one of those purchase orders, and Target has been selling Brown Toy Box products in its stores and online since October 2021. However, Terri-Nichelle and her team — which includes her two oldest sons — didn’t stop there. The company has a new partnership with Lakeshore Learning, its kits are available for purchase at The Village Retail, and it’s finalizing a partnership with Microsoft that will take the Dadisi Academy crew online by September 2022. If that wasn’t enough, Terri-Nichelle is also working on a licensing deal with a major global brand. According to Terri-Nichelle, she’s projecting $3.5 million in sales in 2022, which is up from $1 million in 2021 and $220,000 in 2020. 

Unsurprisingly, Terri-Nichelle is dreaming big for Brown Toy Box’s future. She wants to turn the Dadisi Academy into an animated series and she wants her company to be a global force of play-based, culturally responsive education. “We really want to blow out any limitations that anybody has ever put on us, including those limitations that we put on ourselves,” said Terri-Nichelle. “We can change the trajectory of so many kids’ lives. My goal is for a kid to walk up to me in 15 years and say ‘I’m a chemist because of Brown Toy Box. That’s my goal, and that’s my purpose.”

Learn More

• Brown Toy Box – an educational play-kit company that makes toys to get BIPOC kids excited about STEAM careers.
• Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs (ACE) – ACE is an SBA Microloan Intermediary, a USDA Intermediary Relender and a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like Terri-Nichelle’s? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like ACE, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

Although Lorain Francis hasn’t always worked on the frontlines of food insecurity, she’s been surrounded by volunteerism for as long as she can remember. Lorain grew up in Fairport, New York, where both of her parents were active volunteers in the community. Unsurprisingly, when Lorain grew up and owned a local retail business, she started to volunteer with the merchant’s association to revitalize the town’s main street. 

Lorain Francis

Fifteen years ago, Lorain and her husband moved to his hometown of Union, in an under-served area of coastal Maine, where Lorain found a job at the Chamber of Commerce in Rockland. That ultimately led her to the Maine Development Foundation, where Lorain got the chance to work with communities across the state, doing what she loved. However, after about five years working with Mainers near and far, Lorain began to feel disconnected from the last place she expected: the place she called home. “I realized that I lost my sense of my own community, because I was in everybody else’s community,” Lorain said. “I wanted to make a difference in my own community again, so the thing to do was to get involved locally.”

That’s when Lorain took a job at Penquis, a community action organization in Maine. At Penquis, Lorain helps to administer a federal AmeriCorps grant that places senior volunteers in eight food pantries and a soup kitchen in Mid-Coast Maine. Lorain is the program director for an initiative called Knox County Gleaners, which partners with local and backyard farmers and residents to harvest and redistribute fruits and vegetables to nearby food pantries. Last year, Lorain’s team helped to distribute over 22,000 pounds of vegetables to 22 locations in Knox County. 

It was about two-and-a-half years after joining Penquis that Lorain ultimately found what she calls her “volunteer job” at Come Spring Food Pantry, one of Knox County’s food pantries. Come Spring was started over 20 years ago as a community service project, and when the founder decided to retire, Lorain decided that, given her background in community building, she was the right person to step in and help the organization grow.  

A Lender To Dream With

Even before March 2020, Come Spring was bursting at the seams in its cramped, hard-to-find space located in the basement of a town building. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated those struggles. According to Lorain, not only did social distancing restrictions limit how many people could be present in the tiny pantry at any one time, but it was challenging for community members to access new pickup locations, even as need increased. To make matters worse, Lorain says that there wasn’t enough space to store surplus food, which meant that the nonprofit had to rent another room, which soon became a financial burden for the organization.

Come January 2021, Lorain knew what she needed to do: find a larger space. She and her team began to look around Union to see what was available. A few weeks later, she toured 27 Common Road. Despite that the 2,800-square-foot building was in major need of repairs (snow was falling through the roof), Lorain knew that it was Come Spring’s new home. The next obstacle? Figuring out how the small (but mighty) food pantry was going to be able to purchase it.

Lorain reached out to a colleague at AIO Food & Energy Assistance, another pantry that had just gone through a building campaign, to ask for advice. That’s how Lorain learned about a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) called The Genesis Fund. Since 1992, The Genesis Fund has been working to develop and support affordable housing and community facilities across Maine, mainly by providing both financing and technical assistance to increase the supply of affordable housing. CNote partners with CDFIs like The Genesis Fund in communities across the country, channeling capital to fund social missions like affordable housing, women’s empowerment, entrepreneurial funding, and more. 

When Lorain connected with The Genesis Fund, she instantly knew she found the right financing partner. Not only did the CDFI have an impressive portfolio of similar projects, but, as Lorain describes, the CDFI “dreamed with us as a fledgling pantry wanting to grow big.” The Genesis Fund offered Lorain and her team everything Come Spring needed, including assistance with the loan application and coaching. In the end, being challenged to think about Come Spring’s past, present, and future ultimately helped the food pantry to “grow up,” Lorain said. 

On February 12th, Come Spring made its purchase offer to the building’s owners, and, incredibly, the deal closed on March 31st — 64 days after Lorain and the CSFP Teams initial decision to move the pantry’s location. Meeting the March 31st deadline was significant, Lorain explained, because doing so meant that Come Spring didn’t have to pay taxes on the building for the next year. Therefore, the speed for which The Genesis Fund and the lawyers were able to help Come Spring close on its offer saved the food pantry $3,500. “For us, that’s huge,” Lorain said. “Genesis was amazing to work with. They believed in us from the beginning, and everybody pulled together and made it happen.”

Food Brings People Together

These days, Lorain has a lot on her plate. Once the real estate deal was finalized and the pantry secured its larger space, it was time to get to work. The first thing that needed to be done was to repair the building, namely installing a new roof. However, because Lorain wanted the new building to be a beacon for those experiencing food insecurity, it had to be painted barn red. The addition of “huge signs” helped to ensure that the building can’t be missed — it’s now visible more than a half-mile away.

Come Spring officially opened its new pantry on July 10^th, 2021 and the location has quickly become a long-term food storage hub for other food pantries and food security groups in western Knox County. Besides the much larger food pantry and a big parking lot, Come Spring now has in its plans a storage room, a classroom, and a commercial kitchen, where volunteers can process food (e.g. make apple cider) and prepare take-home meals. The pantry Knox County Gleaners was also able to acquire a CoolBot, an energy efficient walk-in cooler, which ties back to the work that Lorain does with produce redistribution at Knox County Gleaners. Another way Come Spring has established itself as a community center is by hosting Union’s weekly farmers’ market, which consistently attracts large crowds. 

Today, Lorain and her team of volunteers open Come Spring to the community every Wednesday with both daytime and evening hours. In July the pantry will switch from pre-packed boxes to a client choice shopping model just one year after moving to the new pantry. Providing a small grocery store experience and atmosphere allows people to shop for what their families’ preferences are, she said. “It gives people choices, it gives them dignity, and it empowers them to be able to choose what they want.”

Since moving into its new facility, Come Spring estimates that it will be able to increase its capacity to provide services to additional families, including the elderly, couples, veterans, large and small families and anyone struggling with food security in the region. 

“We encourage people to come and get food basics from us and spend their saved income on gas, heat and to keep their car running so they can get to work and children to school. I don’t want anyone in my community to not know that there are food pantries here where anyone can get food,” Lorain said. “It’s a labor of love, and I love making sure that everybody in western Knox County is fed. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Learn More

• Come Spring Food Pantry is a food pantry in Knox County, Maine, with a mission of feeding their neighbors with dignity while promoting health, opportunity and hope.
• The Genesis Fund provides innovative financing by soliciting investment loans from individuals, churches, corporations, and foundations, and then re-lending the money at favorable terms to nonprofit organizations developing affordable housing and community facilities for underserved people and communities throughout Maine and beyond.
• CNote is a women-led investment platform that empowers individuals and institutions to invest locally to further economic equality, racial justice, gender equity, and address climate change.

In the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, Toni Hopkins and her husband talked about moving from their home in Springfield, Illinois to North Carolina to pursue what she describes as “something different.” They’d even gone as far as to meet with a real estate agent to explore selling their house. Ultimately, the couple abandoned their plans to pursue a fresh start at the onset of the pandemic. However, Toni’s desire for “something different” persisted. That’s when she began to listen to the entrepreneurial voice in her head that had spent the past three years telling her to start her own business.

Toni Hopkins, Founder of Cool J’s Apparel.

For Toni, the idea of opening her own business was something of a fantasy. After more than 18 years working in accounting and finance, she was tired of the monotony. Over her career, she’d heard people — coworkers, friends, family members — vocalize wanting to do something different with their lives but never acting on those wants. Toni’s problem was that she knew she wanted to start a business, but she didn’t know what kind of business she wanted to start. She’d even stumbled across a vacant commercial space near her home in Springfield that she determined would be perfect for her nameless, yet-to-be-created future store.

During the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, when stay-at-home mandates went into effect and Toni began to work from home, something changed inside of her. Not only did she and her husband decide to stay planted in Springfield, but that’s when she decided that she was going to shift from talking about opening her own business to actually making it happen. “The pandemic hit, and I said ‘okay, this is the time for me to actually do this,’” she said. “Like everybody else, I started working from home, and I realized that I could be doing something else with my time that I wanted to do instead of pushing numbers.”

Fortunately, Toni was surrounded by a supportive husband, daughter, and son who encouraged her to embrace her entrepreneurial side. She set her fears aside and began to look for the right business opportunities in her community. It didn’t take her long to connect the dots between one of her passions — fashion — and the fact that there weren’t many black-owned clothing boutiques in town that sold trendy yet affordable clothes and accessories. Toni had found her business idea: Cool J’s Apparel. Amazingly, the “perfect” commercial space that she’d seen from her car window a year earlier and fallen in love with was still available. Even more amazing was the fact that Toni was able to work with the landlord to sign a lease.

Falling Into Place

According to Toni, every aspect of her business seemed to effortlessly fall into place. Through her research, she’d learned that women were continuing to purchase clothing during the pandemic and that boutiques like the one she wanted to open continued to be profitable amidst the wide-scale economic uncertainty. That helped to shape the business plan that Toni wrote and carried with her to her local bank to apply for a small business loan. Although the banker told Toni that he couldn’t help her because the loan request wasn’t big enough, he told her to reach out to Justine PETERSEN, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that offers a variety of financial tools and service to help low- and moderate-income individuals and families achieve their personal financial goals. CNote partners with CDFIs like Justine PETERSEN in communities across the country, funding loans and empowering local entrepreneurs like Toni through CNote’s Flagship and Wisdom Funds.

Toni reached out to the CDFI in November 2020, and she quickly connected with Aida Richardson, Justine PETERSEN’s chief lending officer. “Aida was so helpful from the very beginning,” Toni said. “She just knew so much, which was the biggest help. This was my first time opening a business, but she’d done this hundreds of times, so Aida just made it so easy. She answered all of my questions and emails and didn’t hesitate to always point me in the right direction.”

With micro-enterprise lending from Justine PETERSEN, Toni was able to do everything she needed to open Cool J’s Apparel on May 28, 2021. According to her, the loan money from the CDFI helped her with every aspect of her business, from paying rent to completing renovations and from purchasing inventory to buying the iPad that she uses to complete sales. Additionally, Toni says that the CDFI helped her to make her business “become legit and successful,” meaning she was able to leverage those loan dollars to invest in marketing, advertising, and signage. Most importantly, even though Toni received her small business loan roughly 12 months ago, Aida and her colleagues at Justine PETERSEN continue to tell Toni that they’re always available whenever she needs anything, whether that’s a quick question that can be answered over the phone or ongoing technical assistance to help take her business to the next level. 

Unsurprisingly, Toni’s positive experience with Justine PETERSEN is largely why she describes opening Cool J’s Apparel as “so easy.” In the process, she’s inadvertently become one of the CDFI’s biggest cheerleaders. “I’ve been telling everybody about them,” she said, laughing. “They’ll let you know right away if they can help you or not, and if they can’t, then they’ll put you on the right path and they’ll give you the steps to help you. It’s a relationship that I’m really appreciative of, even today.”

‘I Love Doing What I’m Doing’

Although the COVID-19 pandemic couldn’t deter Toni from opening Cool J’s Apparel in May 2021, it did limit her ability to have a grand opening celebration — something she’s considering remedying in the coming weeks. That doesn’t mean that the women’s clothing store where “cute meets comfortable” has struggled to find its footing in Springfield. Business is going well, and Toni says the store enjoys support from both local customers and shoppers who drive down from Chicago. The broad geographic interest in Cool J’s Apparel stems from the fact that Toni carries stylish yet affordable clothes and accessories for all ages. “My customers are Black and white, young and old, and just really diverse,” she said. “I’m not joking. It’s craziness. I don’t know how people target one specific group, because I have such a big range of customers here.”

Cool J’s Apparel even attracts the occasional male customer, which has prompted Toni to consider incorporating a menswear section into her store — or perhaps into a larger location. In the nearterm, Toni would like to hire some help. Currently, Toni operates the store while she continues to work her part-time, remote nonprofit job, and although she appreciates the help she gets from her family, including her niece, she wants to either hire two part-time employees or one full-time staff member as soon as she’s able to. Additionally, Toni is interested in deepening her small business’ connection to the surrounding community, such as sponsoring events where all proceeds go to donating backpacks to the local school.

Even though Toni has the occasional quiet day at Cool J’s Apparel, she’s pleased knowing that when customers do come into her boutique, they tend to walk out with a bag of new clothes. “People that have never been my customers before, they come in and they find something that appeals to them,” Toni said. “I love that. Even on slow days, I still love being here and doing what I’m doing.”

Learn More

• Cool J’s Apparel
• Justine PETERSEN is a CDFI that connects institutional resources with the needs of low-to-moderate-income individuals and families in Missouri, helping them to build assets and create enduring community change.
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like Justine PETERSEN, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

When Terry Boykins was first approached to serve on the board of directors for a nonprofit called Project Fighting Chance, the social entrepreneur politely said “thanks, but no thanks.” It wasn’t because Terry wasn’t aligned with Project Fighting Chance’s mission to function as a viable safe space and trauma resilience support system for youth in San Bernardino, California. Terry’s own work was similarly rooted in community engagement; however, his background was admittedly in the corporate world, and Terry was hesitant to get involved with a nonprofit. 

Terry Boykins

A few years later, in 2016, Terry got his next offer to consider joining Project Fighting Chance’s board, just months after a terrorist attack left the community — and the country — in shock. This time, Terry visited the organization, he spoke with current board members, and, most importantly, he saw the nonprofit’s potential. Terry joined the board, and a year later, he stepped in as the organization’s interim executive director. In July 2020, he dropped the “interim” label and became the nonprofit’s full-time executive director.

One of the reasons that Project Fighting Chance was established in 1999 was to give youth a safe place to go after school. According to Terry, the hours between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. are the most deadly for young people, especially in San Bernardino, the second-most dangerous city in California. That’s why the nonprofit opened its doors: to create a place for students to escape the pervasive poverty, food insecurity, prostitution, drugs, violence, robberies, car jackings, and home invasions around them. “When you talk about PTSD in the hood, it’s here,” Terry said. “These students are trying to navigate an environment where they’re confronted by violence and destruction on a daily basis, so we created a space for them to get away from that, where they can focus on their academic well-being, their emotional well-being, and getting an afternoon meal five days a week.”Since its inception, Project Fighting Chance has built itself a championship reputation within the national amateur boxing community. For example, in 2018, PBS released a docu-series following three of the nonprofit’s top boxers. However, when Terry came onboard, he set out to expand the organization’s programmatic offerings beyond boxing. “The boxing program was already a place where kids wanted to go,” he said, “but I’d been focusing on the obstacles that youth were confronted years down the road. I asked ‘what exactly can be done that will help these young people apply the techniques of boxing as they relate to overcoming issues or struggles or problems to get somewhere else in life?’ That’s when we began to have a different dialogue.”

Through that “different dialogue,” Terry and his colleagues at Project Fighting Chance have put together a dizzying assortment of programmatic offerings for youth between the ages of eight and 18 from San Bernardino and the surrounding communities. While boxing and workouts are still an integral part of Project Fighting Chance, the nonprofit has expanded to offer additional after-school enrichment programs like chess, art classes, horticulture, tutoring, and spoken word. There’s also a mental-health tranquility garden, where students can sit outside and eat lunch, meet with a counselor, or learn about nutrition. Additionally, the San Bernardino City Unified School District helped the nonprofit secure 40 guitars — a mix of acoustic and electric — for its Guitars Not Guns program. “We have a trauma-informed staff, so we understand who’s coming in the door,” Terry said. “It’s a very interesting time here when the guitar instructor and the students are able to come together through music to deal with some social-emotional dynamics that happened in their day.”

Going Toe-to-Toe With A Global Pandemic

Every Monday through Friday, Project Fighting Chance welcomes roughly 120 students through its doors, and in its 22-year existence, it has trained and mentored over 6,000 youth, free of charge. However, the nonprofit’s ability to fulfill its mission was thrown into question at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. With both uncertainty around the virus’ transmission and state-mandated stay-at-home orders, Project Fighting Chance had to close its doors to the youth who needed it most. To make matters worse, much of the grant money that Project Fighting Chance relied on was retracted, which meant that the nonprofit was in immediate need from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to keep afloat. 

Fortunately, a pastor from a nearby church referred Terry and his team to Self-Help Federal Credit Union. Self-Help is a low-income designated credit union that was chartered in 2008 to build a network of branches that serve working families and underserved communities. It currently has more than 78,000 customers across 19 branches in California, 10 branches in Illinois, and one branch in Wisconsin, and it has over $1.2 billion in assets. Like many credit unions in the U.S., Self-Help rose to the challenges presented by PPP loan issuance and forgiveness and acted as an economic shock absorber for the economy. CNote partners with low-income designated credit unions like Self-Help across the country through its Impact Cash Solution. 

Thanks to Self-Help, Project Fighting Chance applied for and received two rounds of PPP loans, which meant that the nonprofit did not have to lay off any of its six employees. The PPP funding also kept fuel in Project Fighting Chance’s tanks — literally. For the first 18 months of the pandemic, the nonprofit used its two vans to deliver 170 meals every day to youth around San Bernardino, ensuring that those experiencing food and transportation insecurity at home could still be served. “The PPP funding proved critical, because it allowed us to repurpose the organization to support young people and their parents in the community,” Terry said. “We were the place they could count on every day, and we basically got those funds and invested them into the community to make sure that we could stay available to these youth.”

Life Outside of the Boxing Ring

Although Project Fighting Chance had to limit its daily capacity to 15 students at the beginning of the pandemic, today, Terry and his team are back to serving over 100 youth a day. Despite the extended time away from face-to-face interactions, programmatically, Project Fighting Chance didn’t miss a beat during the pandemic. In September 2021, for example, the nonprofit kicked off a program called Civil Liberties for Boys of Color, where students got to speak with law enforcement officials — police officers, probationary staff, employees from the district attorney’s office — for 90 minutes every Friday. “These were real conversations,” said Terry. “These kids were scared of the police and not knowing if they’re going to make it back home today. So these folks came in and talked about the law, about behavior, and they talked to these young boys about having a voice for their concerns about living in their communities.”

To say that Project Fighting Chance has become much more than a place for youth to learn about boxing is an understatement. Today, youth are exposed to programs related to nutrition, mental health, sex trafficking, partner violence, civic engagement, and career development. Whether or not a student walks through the nonprofit’s doors wanting to be the next Muhammad Ali or the next Jimi Hendrix, they’re encouraged to train in the boxing gym, visit the tranquility garden, talk about mental wellness, and explore every aspect of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math). 

Why? According to Terry, it’s not only about reducing childhood violence, trauma, and food insecurity, it’s about preparing these youth to be productive members of society. That means developing the coping skills to thrive in the labor force and the civic engagement skills to become informed voters and taxpayers. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that Terry’s most exciting day as executive director of the nonprofit was when he and the youth at Project Fighting Chance were invited to attend a San Bernardino City Council meeting to learn about how local government works. The organization filled every seat in the house, and, as Terry put it, the students got “a lesson outside of the boxing ring that was priceless.

Whether it’s local council members, California state assembly members, school district administrators, teachers, mentors, counselors, therapists, coaches, parents, or credit unions like Self-Help, Terry is quick to acknowledge the broad community support and partnerships that Project Fighting Chance not only enjoys, but relies upon to be successful. “We are not where we are because we’re doing great things,” Terry said. “We are where we are because there are some great people helping us do some very good things after school in this community.” 

Learn More

• Project Fighting Chance‘s Mission is “to function as a viable safe space and trauma resilience support system for youth and young adults at-progress while assisting them to become positive contributing members of the community.”
• Self-Help Federal Credit Union was chartered in 2008 to build a network of branches that serves working families and underserved communities. Serving more than 78,000 members, Self-Help Federal is one of the fastest-growing low-income designated credit unions in the country. 
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great Credit Unions like Self-Help, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

Mellaney Williams

When Mellaney Williams and her husband graduated college and moved to South Carolina in 2001, Mellaney’s husband got himself involved in the irrigation installation trade. However, what started as a side hustle quickly turned into something much bigger, as demand for him and his services grew. Soon, American Home and Commercial Services LLC was doing much more than irrigation; it was doing landscape design and installations, lighting, hardscapes, water features, and even interior paint jobs and flooring projects. 

By 2010, Mellaney’s husband needed help with the business, so Mellaney quit her job and took over the financial side of the operation, as well as marketing, to take some of the administrative burden off of him. The arrangement quickly proved itself to be a win-win. “My husband is very gifted and he was doing fine, but the business had become overwhelming,” Mellaney said. “When I joined, I found my little groove to help it stay consistent. It’s been a miraculous ride.”

However, that “miraculous ride” was put in jeopardy in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic immediately affected Mellaney’s business. Suddenly, there were fewer opportunities to land jobs, and it was difficult to retain workers. With more money going out than coming in, Mellaney had to cut back on things like advertising in order to keep the doors open. She even started going out on projects to help her husband in the field. That’s how she learned how to change sprinkler heads, install lighting systems, and construct ponds. Despite Mellaney and her husband cutting back and being resourceful to make ends meet, American Home and Commercial Services still needed help to ensure that the company could continue to pay its bills and cover its expenses.

Initially, Mellaney wanted more information about the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). She ventured online, but struck out because she couldn’t connect with a person to ask questions and get support. Instead, she ran into red tape and confusion. According to Mellaney, the experience left her feeling lonely. Those feelings were exacerbated when she turned to a credit union where she’d done business for more than 10 years and was told that her PPP loan application wasn’t formatted correctly. “Instead of elaborating and saying ‘if you do this, then we can approve it,’ they did nothing,” Mellaney said. “I felt abandoned. Out here in this pandemic as an African American woman business owner, and no one was there to help. It was very hard.”

Fortunately, someone in Mellaney’s network suggested that she reach out to Optus Bank. Optus Bank is a Columbia-based community bank with a mission-driven purpose. For the past 100 years, it’s been working to strengthen communities throughout South Carolina by closing the wealth gap created by systematic disparities in the financial industry. Optus Bank is a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), and its main goal is to ensure that wealth building is not just for the wealthy. CNote partners with CDFIs like Optus Bank across the country through its Impact Cash™ Solution, empowering woman small business owners like Mellaney.

According to Mellaney, her experience working with Optus Bank was “amazing,” “transparent,” and “a breath of fresh air.” She said that the application was straightforward, deadlines were clear, and her questions were answered — by real people. Within two weeks of contacting Optus in July 2020, Mellaney was notified that she was approved for her PPP loan. “I can’t put it into words,” she said. “I was so elated. They extended that hand to help me, and they gave a lifeline to my business. They made me a believer, and I can’t recommend them enough. Optus Bank will have my business for all of my future endeavors, because I have plans for big things.”

‘You Gotta Dream Big’

As Mellaney alluded to, she doesn’t intend to slow down anytime soon. Roughly seven years ago, American Home and Commercial Services had the opportunity to be a subcontractor for one of the largest landscape irrigation companies in the southeastern United States. The project was incredibly challenging, and it required an immense level of physical and mental fortitude to complete; however, Mellaney says that the project, including getting a glimpse into the operations of a much larger company, opened up her eyes to what was possible. “I knew that was a stepping stone to take us to another level,” she said. “If we could have the tenacity to complete that project, then we can do anything. That was the most challenging moment, but it was also the most rewarding experience, because we learned that there is no limit when you put your mind to whatever you want.”

What Mellaney wants for her business’ future is to expand into other cities, to grow its operations, and to bring as much of its supply chain as possible in house. Her ultimate goal, however, is to franchise American Home and Commercial Services and to one day go public. She’s a vocal promoter of Dun & Bradstreet, a global company that helps small businesses to connect with potential partners and investors. Mellaney discovered the company earlier this year, and she says having a D-U-N-S number has allowed her to both grow her business and talk confidently about her company’s future. “I love dreaming big,” she said. “If you don’t have a dream, then what’s the use — life is boring. You gotta dream big.”

Today, in the wake of losing her mother to COVID-19 in October, Mellaney has the joy of dreaming not only about her future, but the future of her infant daughter. According to Mellaney, while owning a successful business is fulfilling, it’s impossible to compare that to having a beautiful baby girl waiting for her at home. “Nothing else is more rewarding,” Mellaney said. “Now, I work even harder for her.”

Learn More

• Optus Bank is a community bank, with a mission-driven purpose. They help strengthen their community by closing the wealth gap created by systemic disparities in the financial industry. By providing loans and banking services to local businesses and individuals they serve to turn deposits into direct support for the communities where their customers live and work.
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like Mellaney’s? CNote makes it easy to invest in great banks like Optus, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

Although Danielle Mahon identifies as a late-in-life entrepreneur, she’s more of a waiting-for-the-right-idea entrepreneur. Danielle grew up in southern New Jersey, and she spent her summers on the Jersey Shore with friends and family. Danielle pursued a career in sales, but it was her husband’s job that took her and her children to Raleigh, North Carolina, where Danielle quickly put down roots on (and fell in love with) nearby Topsail Island. She spent the next 10 years working in biotech before going on a girls trip to the Outer Banks in 2016. It was there, having lunch with her mother and sister, that Danielle found her business idea: the restaurant where they were eating offered make-at-home seafood steam pots, where patrons could take the black-and-white enamel pots home and return them the next day. The concept struck Danielle, and a business plan that didn’t require a full-service restaurant began to take shape in her head.

For Danielle, the timing seemed right to open a business. She and her husband were preparing to send their youngest child to college, and the soon-to-be empty-nesters were more than ready to move from Raleigh to Topsail. In no time at all, Danielle quit her job in corporate America, moved to the beach, and with a $75,000 loan from a family member, she opened Topsail Steamer in Surf City in March 2017. Topsail Steamer’s business model is straightforward: sell customizable, one-time-use steam pots — filled with fresh seafood, sausage, veggies, and homemade seasonings — so that people can take the buckets home, add water (or beer), and cook, eat, and enjoy them. Topsail Steamer even includes cocktail sauce, butter, and brown paper for the table, adding to the at-home dining experience. Despite the steep learning curve, Danielle quickly mastered how to handle and source all of her seafood locally (when possible), and a strong first year paved the way for Topsail Steamer to open a second location in neighboring Wrightsville Beach in May 2018.

Business continued to be strong until September of that year, when Hurricane Florence walloped Topsail Island, effectively devastating the area’s tourism-dependent shoulder season and many of the residents’ homes. It’s never easy to be hit by a hurricane, but for a new business with a three-month-old second location, Topsail Steamer struggled to regain its footing after the storm. That’s when Danielle connected with Thread Capital, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that offers North Carolina small business owners capital, coaching, and networking opportunities. According to Danielle, she received funds to shore up her business and to make Topsail Steamer more resilient so that it could face — and survive — a future natural disaster. For Danielle, building resiliency into her business meant figuring out a way to ship her seafood pots straight to customers’ front doors. With a loan from Thread Capital, Danielle was able to buy a generator, build out her business’ refrigeration systems, and get the necessary packaging in place to start Topsail Steamer’s shipping services.

Wind In Her Sails

In April 2019, Danielle and her growing team shipped their first seafood bucket. Around that same time, another opportunity to make Topsail Steamer more resilient presented itself: the building across the street went on the market in Surf City. Until that point, Danielle had been a renter, which opened her up to tremendous risk in the face of another hurricane, as a flattened, uninsured building would have been the end to Topsail Steamer. Danielle wanted to purchase the building, but she again needed help from a CDFI. This time, Thread Capital connected her with one of its partners called Natural Capital Investment Fund (NCIF), a CDFI that provides loans and technical assistance to innovative entrepreneurs across a nine-state region. CNote partners with CDFIs like NCIF in communities across the country, providing business coaching, funding loans, and empowering local entrepreneurs like Danielle.

NCIF lent Danielle the capital she needed to purchase the building in Surf City, and by August 2019, Topsail Steamer was shipping 25 orders a week. That’s when, once again, a vacation with friends and family spurred Danielle to make another big entrepreneurial move. This time, she was back in Ocean City, New Jersey trying to visit one of her favorite fudge spots; however, the store had shuttered. Danielle had never considered taking Topsail Steamer to Ocean City, but the vacancy at the “million-dollar,” highly trafficked location was enough to convince her otherwise.

Danielle rented the space, and in January 2020, while she was moving forward with renovations at her Ocean City location, she came across Goldbelly, a curated online marketplace for regional and artisanal foods crafted by local food purveyors throughout the United States. Danielle applied and a few days later, Goldbelly asked her to send a seafood pot to Manhattan. Within a month and a half, Topsail Steamer was on Goldbelly’s platform. Incredibly, Danielle’s business went live with Goldbelly during the first week of March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to shut down everything. As people shifted to primarily ordering food online, business exploded for Topsail Steamer, and Danielle and her team went from shipping 25 buckets a week to shipping 400 buckets a week.

For a third time, Danielle needed assistance from one of her trusted CDFI partners. This time, she needed both capital — again, for refrigeration — and business mentorship and advice. “We went from about $350,000-worth of business in 2017 to $3.2 million in 2020,” Danielle said. “It all happened so fast, and so we just needed a growth advisor to make sure that we’re creating a foundation that’s both going to support what’s happening and to allow us to intentionally grow and maintain our high standards. As somebody who is a new business owner, there are so many areas that you have to either be an expert in or have somebody who is a subject matter expert to help advise you, and NCIF has really been that partner for us.”

Full Steam Ahead

Today, Topsail Steamer has six locations between North Carolina and New Jersey, and via Goldbelly, the company has shipped seafood buckets to all 50 states. Danielle has no plans of slowing down her business’ expansion anytime soon, and according to her, she wants to open anywhere from two to four more stores every year, but only if she and her team find the right places in the right markets. She’s also resisting going down the traditional franchising route, instead favoring to keep Topsail Steamer family-, friend-, and employee-operated. That means cultivating her base of 100-plus talented employees, creating professional development opportunities internally, and growing her leadership team from within her stores. Point in case: Danielle’s brother-in-law, Brian, is Topsail Steamer’s director of store operations, and her two children, Emily and Jimmy — the company’s first two employees — continue to work full-time in local store marketing and business development for Topsail Steamer.

Given where she was and what she was doing five years ago, it may seem unbelievable what Danielle is doing today as the founder and CEO of Topsail Steamer; but, for Danielle, something like this was always in the cards for her. She grew up watching her father, who happened to be a small business owner himself, and according to her, one of her strengths has always been to identify opportunities around her. In the case of Topsail Steamer, while it’s been a blend of opportunity, timing, and serendipity that has contributed to its success, the business’ skyrocketing trajectory is in large part a result of Danielle having faith in herself. Unsurprisingly, when asked what advice she has for other late-in-life entrepreneurs, it’s the same advice that she’s told herself time and time again: “just have confidence in yourself.”

Learn More

• Topsail Steamer offers seafood steam pots prepared with fresh local seafood, meats, veggies, and homemade seasonings to take home, steam, eat and enjoy!
• Natural Capital Investment Fund (NCIF) is a CDFI that provides loans and technical assistance to innovative entrepreneurs across a nine-state region.
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like Danielle’s? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like NCIF, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

When Deshonda Charles, Esq. was a little girl, she wanted two things in life: to be a singer and to become a lawyer. According to her, she was attracted to the legal world thanks to Clair Huxtable, the matriarch at the center of The Cosby Show. A young Deshonda watched the television show during its original run when she was still in elementary school, and although she didn’t know exactly what it meant to be a lawyer, she knew she wanted to be a businesswoman like the one portrayed by Clair Huxtable. “I didn’t pursue any other career paths,” Deshonda said. “I’ve enjoyed it from the start. Fortunately for me, as I continued on my journey, I’ve learned that you can do so much more than just lawyering with a law degree.”

Deshonda received her law degree from Tulane University in 2003 and went on to pass four different Bar Exams in four states: Louisiana, Connecticut, New York, and Texas. Deshonda landed a position in a small boutique law firm in Houston, Texas after graduating and for just under six years she thrived at networking and promoting her services. Deshonda’s knack for generating business was recognized by the firm’s managing partner, and her mentor, who occasionally asked whether she’d ever considered starting her own practice. According to Deshonda, not only was he a wonderful mentor to her, but when she decided to initiate a conversation with him about going her own way six years after joining the firm, he told her that she had his full support. More so, he approved of her taking all of her current clients with her.

While attorneys aren’t typically associated with being entrepreneurial, Deshonda said that it came naturally to her. Her grandfather owned a neighborhood sundries shop in New Orleans, where she was born, so Deshonda had a very real-life example of what it meant to be a small business owner. On April 20, 2011, Deshonda founded The Tackett Firm (TTF) and took the role of President and CEO. More than 10 years later, the practice continues to focus on estate planning, employment discrimination disputes, family law matters, and civil litigation. Additionally, TTF handles matters in the states of Texas, Louisiana, and New York, as well as in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and the Federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. “I never intended to go into private practice, but it just kind of happened as a natural next step in my career, ” Deshonda said. “It’s pretty exciting to have been in practice all of this time and to have a successful firm.”

Do Better Business

TTF’s longevity, however, was threatened by the COVID-19-induced shutdowns that began in March 2020. According to Deshonda, she began to receive a lot of cold calls from people with questions about their employer’s response to the pandemic — for example, being forced to take leave. While the vast majority of incoming calls didn’t result in new business, Deshonda viewed the conversations as opportunities to cultivate relationships. Still, business slowed. To make matters more difficult, due to the realities created by COVID-19, Deshonda had to part ways with her sole paralegal, who’d been with her for nine and a half years. “That was really, really scary,” she said, “because then I had to start relying on new people who didn’t know my business as well. It takes a lot to train someone and to bring them up to speed. That was a challenge.”

Yet another challenge presented itself to Deshonda when she attempted to secure PPP funding for TTF. She went to the only big bank where she’s ever done business to inquire about resources, guidance, and PPP eligibility. According to her, she might as well have walked into the room and thrown spaghetti on the walls. “They just didn’t care,” she said. “I couldn’t get a banker to even acknowledge that I had submitted the application because I wasn’t a big enough fish.” Frustrated, Deshonda turned to the support group of like-minded minority women business owners that she’s a part of in Houston. That’s when one of her good friends referred her to TruFund, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that invests in small businesses in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, and New York. CNote partners with CDFIs like TruFund in communities across the country, providing business coaching, funding loans, and empowering local entrepreneurs like Deshonda. Deshonda reached out to TruFund, and within a few days, she was connected with Jessica Whittington, a program officer who helped to walk Deshonda through the PPP application process. “It’s hard to describe how it feels to have that kind of support from a financial institution,” she said. “It was a game-changer.”

Not only did TruFund help Deshonda secure PPP funding so that she could pay herself, contract lawyers and as-needed, support staff, but the CDFI immediately plugged Deshonda into its suite of programmatic offerings. Thus far, she’s participated in three business support programs, including one called PitchHer, centered around developing a strong business pitch, and another called Empow-HER-ment, a comprehensive business and financial training program to enhance the business acumen of participating women entrepreneurs. The trainings, led by industry experts, range from general business topics to life-work balance challenges, management, strategy, marketing, accessing capital, credit building, and effectively delivering a business pitch to potential investors. Deshonda also completed TruFund’s FinanceHer program, a course dedicated to preparing women entrepreneurs to become capital-ready.

According to Deshonda, TruFund has helped her business in so many ways. The CDFI stayed connected with her so that when the second round of PPP funding became available, it was easy for Deshonda to submit everything and to apply. She also likes how responsive TruFund is to questions, whether over email or by phone, and she appreciates that trainings are held in the evenings and not during business hours. As someone who initially reached out to TruFund based on a word-of-mouth referral, Deshonda has since become a vocal advocate for the CDFI. “It’s one of those things where you’re calling your friends and your colleagues and saying ‘Y’all need to figure out how you’re going to participate in this program,’” she laughed, “Because TruFund is just so fantastic and helpful.”

Today, Deshonda feels good about the state of her business. More importantly, she feels good about the direction that her business is going. In the coming years, she plans to do more professional speaking engagements surrounding estate planning, and she’s focused on building a team around her, including hiring additional clerical staff and another paralegal who can grow with her business. In the meantime, she plans to continue doing what she does best: being a lawyer. “I just want to be able to continue to litigate in the areas that I know,” Deshonda said, “and I want to continue to grow. It’d be nice to bring on a full-time associate attorney — that’s been a goal for two years, but then COVID happened. I’m still definitely working toward that.”

Learn More

• The Tackett Firm has been providing exceptional legal services and representation to the greater Houston, Texas community for 15 years. TTF’s primary practice areas include estate planning, employment discrimination litigation, and family law disputes.
• TruFund – is a 501 (c) 3 certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) headquartered in New York City with field offices in Alabama and Louisiana. TruFund tailors its financial and technical assistance to the unique needs of each site—from contractor mobilization lending in New York and Louisiana to rural Black Belt initiatives in Alabama.
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like Ethel’s? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like TruFund, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

When Josh Houeye and Magen Hearn went on a date at a local Vietnamese restaurant in 2018, neither of them anticipated that a small business idea would blossom out of their boba tea. However, that’s exactly what happened. The bubble tea was so good that Josh pulled out his phone and Googled the ingredients. Impressed, he did some quick math, turned to Magen, and asked her if she wanted to sell the tea-based drinks with him. She said “yes.”

Making and selling bubble tea was a big leap for the couple: at the time, Magen was the sales director and assistant general manager at a Holiday Inn Express, and Josh had spent six years as a car salesman. Still, they didn’t let their lack of experience hold them back. Within two weeks of their boba business idea, the couple found themselves at their first pop-up event at a street festival in rural Wiggins, Mississippi. Despite their enthusiasm, the event was, as they put it, a complete flop. However, the very next weekend, the couple snagged a well-positioned booth at a festival in Josh’s hometown and tried again. This time, they brought in over $1,000 over the course of two days. With that, the couple was off to the races. For the next two years, Josh and Magen lived for the weekends, continuing to work their full-time, Monday through Friday jobs while chasing festivals and fairs across the region on Saturday and Sunday, selling boba tea.

When the COVID-19 pandemic brought an abrupt pause to public events, Josh and Magen were left to reconsider their pop-up business model. According to them, due to their growing popularity with festival-goers, they’d been talking about starting a brick-and-mortar store for a while, but it was really the ongoing shutdowns — as well as Magen being laid off — that led the couple to explore the idea more seriously. “When the virus shut down all the festivals, we really felt like we needed a store,” Josh said. “We couldn’t make money at festivals, and with a store, we wouldn’t be as restricted, but we had no idea how to get money to do it.”

No Laughing Matter

When Josh and Magen began to look for funding sources, they initially approached a number of banks, but that approach turned out to be a no-go. According to Magen, the banks didn’t pay the fledgling small business owners any mind. In fact, despite their good credit and their modest cash reserves, the couple received more laughs than anything else. Frustrated with being either ignored, ghosted, or laughed at by traditional lenders, the couple ended up contacting Renaissance Community Loan Fund, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that offers tailored lending services for mortgages, home improvement, and commercial loans across Mississippi. CNote partners with CDFIs like Renaissance Community Loan Fund in communities across the country, providing business coaching, funding loans, and empowering local entrepreneurs like Magen and Josh.

This time, when the entrepreneurs spoke with Renaissance’s director of lending, John-Michael Marlin, in August, they didn’t receive any laughs: just support and encouragement. Like other CDFIs, Renaissance was less concerned about Josh and Magen’s credit history and more interested in their business plan, their vision, and their character. Unsurprisingly, Josh and Magen were prepared with a solid business plan, and they’d already found a prime location and a landlord willing to work with them in Picayune, Mississippi. That was enough to convince the CDFI, and a month after Renaissance did a site visit, Josh and Magen closed on their loan. A little over a month later, in November 2020, they officially opened The Melt Bistro. “Working with Renaissance has been pretty incredible,” Magen said. “They were really supportive, and it seemed more like we had them cheering us on rather than just making sure we paid them back. They made us feel like they were going through opening our store with us, together.”

Living For The Highs, Learning From The Lows

Amazingly, the pandemic hasn’t hindered Josh and Magen’s restaurant. Instead, business at The Melt Bistro is booming. The cafe, which offers bubble tea, Blue Bell ice cream by the scoop, and specialty sandwiches, continues to bring in more than double the initial sales amount that Josh and Magen first projected when they approached Renaissance. More so, the couple has been able to hire 11 employees, exceeding their expectations. Their early — and well-earned — success, however, has them thinking ahead to even bigger and better goals for The Melt Bistro, which include having chains throughout Mississippi and neighboring states. In the meantime, Josh and Magen are more than content to perfect their business operations at their sole location in small-town Picayune, where they can bike to work and where their rent is less than a half of what they’d pay in another town.

Starting a successful small business in a small town hasn’t been without its challenges, and Josh and Magen have had their fair share of headaches. Supply chain shortages, ranging from tapioca pearls to cups, have been a recent source of frustration; however, Josh says that as an entrepreneur, the struggles are a surprising source of motivation for him. “There are challenges every day,” he said, “and that is both the best and the worst part at the same time. In those moments, it’s easy to get frustrated and say ‘here we go again,’ but it’s also cool because then we have a chance to change something, to make something better, and do something differently.”

It’s only been three years since Josh and Magen first hatched their plan to sell bubble tea at street fairs, but the financial security and peace of mind the couple now have that they own a thriving small business have been life-changing. According to Josh, The Melt Bistro earns more money in a day than he did from his monthly paychecks at his previous full-time job, where he didn’t know how much time would pass between one car sale and another. That’s not the case at The Melt Bistro, which has consistent five-star reviews across all platforms and where Josh and Magen are confident that business will continue to grow. “I’m stress-free,” Josh said. “We’ve made such a friendly experience at our restaurant, and people are beating down our door. They just keep coming, and we know that they’re not going to stop — and neither are we.”

Learn More

• The Melt Bistro
• Renaissance Community Loan Fund is a Mississippi nonprofit lender that offers unique, tailored lending services for mortgages, home improvement, and commercial loans.
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like Renaissance Community Loan Fund, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

For as long as she can remember, Leslie Rosella has loved animals. Pursuing a bright career in the restaurant industry, it never occurred to her that she could turn her childhood love into a profession. That was the case, at least, until she got Brixx: a purebred Rottweiler that Leslie and her boyfriend, Chris Cooley, got soon after the couple arrived in Portland, Oregon in 2001. While Brixx proved to be the perfect companion, she struggled with “insane health problems,” as Leslie put it, from chronic ear infections to gastrointestinal issues to an array of orthopedic conditions. Leslie began to have to take Brixx to see the veterinarian on a weekly basis, and because of the rottweiler’s health issues, Leslie had a difficult time finding a doggy daycare center that was equipped to provide the level of care and attention that Brixx required.

Hoping to learn more about rescues and in an effort to educate pet owners, Leslie became a volunteer with the Oregon Humane Society’s behavior unit. She learned that the reasons most families surrender their pets are due to simple behavior-related problems that could have been solved with simple training. Leslie became passionate about educating prospective pet owners about adoption awareness; as well as keeping pets in their homes. She soon received her certification in dog training.

Around the same time, Leslie and Chris began talking about moving back to Jackson, Mississippi to be closer to family. Leslie felt confident enough in her training to take a leap of faith and step away from the restaurant industry to actually pursue working with dogs as a career. Leslie knew a doggie daycare was a service Jackson desperately needed.

After 11 years in Portland, the couple moved back to Mississippi, and Leslie poured everything she had into creating a business plan. She received mentoring from a local Small Business Administration community college professor, who tweaked her business plan and helped her with her financial modeling. Meanwhile, she built her client base through in-home pet sitting, dog training, and volunteering with local, non-profit rescues. Pippa Jackson, the director for one of these nonprofits, who happened to be a realtor, took a particular interest in Leslie’s dream and set out on a mission to help Leslie find the perfect property where she could open Dog Day Afternoon Canine Social Club, an off-leash dog facility focused on group enrichment.

Six No’s, One Yes

First, however, Leslie had to secure capital in order to purchase the building. She started to visit banks in the area to share her business plan and to apply for a loan. Although each bank showed interest, she got turned down each time because she didn’t have enough collateral to qualify for a loan. Eventually, in 2017, after being shot down by five different banks, the sixth (while also turning her down) suggested she contact Renaissance Community Loan Fund, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that offers tailored lending services for mortgages, home improvement, and commercial loans across Mississippi. CNote partners with CDFIs like Renaissance Community Loan Fund in communities across the country, providing business coaching, funding loans, and empowering local entrepreneurs like Leslie.

“They weren’t just looking at facts and figures,” Leslie said. “Renaissance actually took the time to get to know me. They were just incredible to work with: very personable and encouraging. Everybody else said ‘No,’ but they said ‘Yes.’ They took the time to realize my vision, and I owe them everything.”

In November 2017, Leslie’s loan — to purchase the building, do renovations, and have the working capital to get her business off the ground — was approved, and despite some rezoning challenges, Leslie was able to move into her new facility on September 1, 2018. A little over one month later, she did her first trial day with clients that she had long-standing relationships with from pet sitting and dog training. By the beginning of 2019, Dog Day Afternoon Canine Social Club was officially up and running.

At the beginning of 2020, she saw a significant increase in new clients, and Leslie and her team were confident that it was going to be their year. That’s when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Spring Break was Leslie’s most profitable week to date. The next week, her facility was practically empty. As her business is considered essential, Dog Day Afternoon remained open during the pandemic lockdown. It was a tough couple of months, but Leslie considers herself very fortunate to have received grants to supplement the loss in income. Although the pandemic put a strain on her business, Leslie says that since Memorial Day 2021, Dog Day Afternoon is hitting new records every weekend — and that’s through word-of-mouth advertising alone. “The pandemic hit us hard,” Leslie said, “but business is picking up, and this is the best that we’ve ever done. I feel very lucky.”

Leslie credits her Mom, Pam Rosella, for always being there for her. “Every step of the way, she’s held my hand. Every successful moment, every heartache, every impossible hurdle, she’s been my rock. I truly could not have done this without her encouragement.”

A Fur-ever Home

Looking toward the future of Dog Day Afternoon Canine Social Club, Leslie would be interested in opening more facilities but is more focused on making her current location flourish. Currently, she and her team offer doggie daycare and overnight stays (also known as doggie slumber parties) and dog grooming services. In phase two of renovations on the building, she intends to have a full-service grooming salon, overnight suites equipped with TVs and interactive cameras, and a small retail store.

Despite the uncertainties of the next few years, one thing that Leslie is certain about is her commitment to deepening her relationships with local nonprofit animal shelters and her community. Part of her mission is to educate dog owners and promote adoption awareness. Currently, Dog Day Afternoon welcomes some rescue dogs into its doggie daycare to receive enrichment and lots of one on one attention that they wouldn’t get at the shelter. Leslie says this increases their chances of getting adopted as well as success transitioning into their forever homes.

Those efforts don’t just include nonprofits in Jackson — Leslie has partnered with Animal Rescue Fund of MS (ARF) and their animal rescue partners in Maine, 3 Dogs Rescue and Lairbear Transport, which helps to find shelter dogs in Mississippi wonderful homes in the Northeast. Additionally, Leslie and her team have office dogs, which is essentially a hospice/ foster program for shelter dogs nearing the end of their lives. According to Leslie, the dogs get to live at Dog Day Afternoon. They roam freely around the facility and “are spoiled rotten in their final days.”

Leslie’s above-and-beyond approach to caring for the dogs in — and away — from her community is similar to the above-and-beyond approach that Renaissance Community Loan Fund takes to support Mississippians who’re deemed unbankable by traditional lenders. Not only did the CDFI pave the way for Leslie to get Dog Day Afternoon up and running, but Renaissance also loaned Leslie and Chris the money they needed to purchase a home. Because Chris was furloughed during the pandemic and Leslie only pays herself a small salary, the two couldn’t get a loan from a bank. Thanks to Renaissance, the two closed on a house in July. “I hate to be cheesy and say that they make dreams come true,” Leslie said, “but they really do. Renaissance made our dreams come true.”

Sadly, Leslie and Chris lost their Rottweiler, Brixx, which inspired her dream in August of 2019.  A few months later, a Rottweiler came into ARF that was in very bad shape. With a Rottie-sized hole in their hearts, Leslie and Chris jumped at the chance to foster him. The couple ended up adopting Bigg’in a year to the day after losing Brixx. Bigg’in joins their big family of rescue siblings including a Foxhound, MJ,(rescued from an animal testing facility in Oregon), two foster failures from ARF, Goose (whom she nursed back to health) and Possum (a formally feral dog) and four foster failure kitties

Learn More

• Dog Day Afternoon Canine Social Club
• Renaissance Community Loan Fund is a Mississippi nonprofit lender that offers unique, tailored lending services for mortgages, home improvement, and commercial loans.
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like Renaissance Community Loan Fund, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

Cortaiga Collins, Founder of Good Shepherd Preschool

Cortaiga Collins never intended to open her own business, let alone her own early childhood education center. Instead, Cortaiga received her bachelor’s degree and was on track to become a CPA. However, when she had her second child in 2000, everything changed. After having her first child as a senior in high school, Cortaiga felt like she got a second chance at parenting. The St. Louis, Missouri-native wanted to do everything perfectly, but when her three months of maternity leave finished and it was time to find a daycare center for her son, Cortaiga discovered that it was difficult to find a place that she trusted with her baby. After a series of bad experiences at both commercial daycare centers and home-based operations, Cortaiga decided to quit her job at a city government agency to create a childcare solution that offered quality services to families.

Before Cortaiga could open her own center, she had to immerse herself in early childhood care. She enrolled in classes at community college and took an administrative job at her church’s elementary school. Soon after, she became the director of the school, where she gained valuable experience. Finally, in 2009, the then-single mother of two found herself on the brink of being licensed and opening her own center, Good Shepherd Preschool and Infant/Toddler Center, with the social mission to raise the standard of childcare and to create a quality early childhood program that equips children for school and the world. “Getting open was the most cumbersome part of it all,” Cortaiga said, “I had no experience with permits and licenses and inspectors and building requirements. I didn’t have thousands of dollars saved or a mentor. I got a $35,000 grant, but that wasn’t enough.”

Fortunately, Cortaiga was able to get the rest of the capital that she needed to open her business from Justine PETERSEN, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that connects institutional resources with the needs of low-to-moderate-income individuals and families in Missouri, helping them to build assets and create enduring community change. CNote partners with CDFIs like Justine PETERSEN in communities across the country, funding loans and empowering local entrepreneurs like Cortaiga. With capital from Justine PETERSEN, Cortaiga was able to finish renovations to her space and open the doors to Good Shepherd. The CDFI also connected her with an accountant that she continues to work with today.

Since it got up and running, Cortaiga’s business has been full steam ahead. Good Shepherd opened in March 2009, and by Halloween, it’d already outgrown its space. Cortaiga decided to open a second location, and again, Justine PETERSEN provided funding to help Cortaiga with her expansion. Then, in 2018, Cortaiga bought land in the same low-income community to build a $2.5 million state-of-the-art childcare center that would bring both of her centers together under one roof. The new development is set to open in October 2021, and with the larger space, Cortaiga will be able to grow her team from 14 employees to over 20. Better yet, the larger facility has the capacity to serve over 100 children at a time. “I never knew that this journey would take me to where I am and where I’m going,” Cortaiga said. “I’m just a former single mom who wanted a safe place to take her kid. Now, I’m in uncharted waters with this space. It’s scary and exciting, but you know what they say: ‘if you build it, they’ll come.’ I’m counting on them coming.”

Investing in the Future

While it’s incredible how far Cortaiga — and her business — have come since she quit her job 21 years ago, all of that success was nearly erased by the COVID-19 pandemic. The perfect storm of shutdowns, remote work, fear, and uncertainty almost shuttered Good Shepherd, and according to Cortaiga, despite the fact that she was able to begin to bring a limited number of infants and toddlers back into her centers last November, she’s still working her way toward full capacity. “At one point,” she said, “I began to prepare my staff and my parents that we were going to have to lay off everybody if we didn’t fill our available slots. For months and months, we were dangerously close to having to shut our doors.”

Thankfully, Cortaiga didn’t have to close her business. Instead, she and her team are preparing to move into their new expanded center. To help get the word out, Cortaiga has been getting digital marketing assistance from a marketing and social impact consultant introduced to her through Pacific Community Ventures (PCV), another local CDFI referred by Justine PETERSEN. After tackling her business’s website and social media presence, Cortaiga said that she plans to work with a PCV-provided business mentor to help her with more Human Resources-related elements of her small business. According to her, recruiting and retaining qualified employees are her biggest challenges. Despite those headaches, Cortaiga says it’s the children that keep her motivated to run her business. “No matter what’s going on, kids just love so freely,” she said. “They’re so forgiving and resilient, and seeing their emotional and academic development and progress makes it all worth it.”

From Kids to Community Development

When asked about the future of Good Shepherd Preschool and Infant/Toddler Center, Cortaiga doesn’t just share her dreams for her small business, she shares her dreams for her community. Through her more than two decades of working with children in her community, Cortaiga has learned that it’s not just children who need care — it’s entire families. That led her to launch a nonprofit called Foundation for Strengthening Families with the goal to help families rise above poverty through education. Not only does the organization offer early childhood education programs, but it also has adult education classes on topics such as health and wellness and financial literacy. “They say if your dreams don’t scare you, then they’re not big enough,” Cortaiga said. “I see me in a lot of people in this community — especially the single moms. I grew up in poverty, and I know how my life has changed as a result of not living in poverty anymore.”

Cortaiga’s vision for her slice of St. Louis — and her desire to help families break out of generational cycles of poverty and to purchase local homes  — is inspired by the work being done by the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York and the East Durham Childhood Initiative in North Carolina. As much as she’s looking at communities across the country to see where she can borrow from already established community development playbooks, Cortaiga is hoping to forge local partnerships to bring her vision to fruition, including with Mayor Tishaura Jones, the city’s first Black woman mayor. “No one organization can get all this done,” she said. “Collaboration is such an integral part of being able to create lasting change in a community. We want to rebuild and restructure this community by rebuilding the residents so that this can be a thriving place to live.”

Learn More

• Good Shepherd Preschool and Infant/Toddler Center
• Pacific Community Ventures is an Oakland-based CDFI that empowers small business owners and helps impact investors make investments that create shared prosperity and sustainable communities through a “Good Jobs, Good Business” model.” 
• Justine PETERSEN is a CDFI that connects institutional resources with the needs of low-to-moderate-income individuals and families in Missouri, helping them to build assets and create enduring community change.
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like Pacific Community Ventures, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

John Highkin, Executive Director of Fern Street Circus

When most people think about social justice, they don’t think about circus arts; however, for John Highkin, social change is at the center of his community arts nonprofit, Fern Street Circus. John grew up in Los Angeles and became a musician before moving to England to get a master’s degree in English. In 1987, while in Europe, John had the opportunity to spend a few months at the world-famous Berliner Ensemble in East Berlin, where he became fascinated with both political and physical theater. By chance, when he returned to Southern California to intern at The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park, Cirque du Soleil happened to be in San Diego for a month during its first U.S. tour. “I looked at them,” he said, “and I thought I was seeing what circus could be. I really dreamed about being able to have my own circus one day.”

Following that dream, John went on the road as a production manager with a single-ring circus in St. Louis called Circus Flora. Although that led to other jobs with different shows in different states, including the bus-&-truck tour of The Soviet Acrobatic Revue, John always wanted to return to San Diego to start something of his own. In 1990, he learned about some local grant opportunities, and with the help of both his future wife, co-founder Cindy Zimmerman, and his favorite aunt, John started Fern Street Circus, a community-building social circus in San Diego’s Golden Hill neighborhood. The next year, the nonprofit unveiled its first show to more than 500 community members. “That’s what attracted me to circus,” John said. “It isn’t stuck in one building. Instead, it’s an art form where we could actually go out into neighborhoods and play in parks and play for people where they live, work, and learn. It’s something that transcends barriers between people of varying cultures and languages.”

For the next 13 years, John and Fern Street Circus continued to create memorable experiences in and around San Diego, and the community arts nonprofit quickly built a reputation for itself of providing people with unusual, albeit entertaining experiences close to home. Additionally, in 1993, Fern Street Circus launched a free-of-charge after-school program in the local recreation center. During that time, John learned a lot about how to create stories through circus and to make contact with diverse communities, and how to bring people together to mix and mingle around the spectacle, music, and acrobatics of his talented team of circus artists. “We want to talk to people in communities, and we want to be a way for people to come together,” John said. “Even if the story is subtle and doesn’t immediately hit people, it’s entertainment that they don’t usually see in their neighborhood parks.”

In 2003, however, John felt worn out. A looming budget crisis led to huge drops in government funding at the state and local levels. Despite the success of the organization, more than a decade of serving as the nonprofit’s de facto grant writer, artistic creator, financial officer, human resources director, and community relations guru left him ready for a change. John passed over the nonprofit’s reins to a committed group of internal stakeholders, moved to Kansas to be closer to Cindy’s family, and took a government arts job in the city of Salina.

It was ultimately grandchildren, not the circus, that brought John and Cindy back to San Diego in 2010. Although John became the executive director of an arts education organization called Young Audiences of San Diego and felt fulfilled by his work, he couldn’t escape his previous association with Fern Street Circus. According to him, people would come up to him on the street and ask him what happened to it, mentioning how much their kids loved the music, how much they missed the shows, or how much they enjoyed the quick-witted, bilingual ringmaster. At that time, the circus had been on a hiatus for a few years as it struggled to raise money. That didn’t stop John from wanting to bring it back to life. In 2014, John left his job, and with a new board of directors, Fern Street Circus kicked off a revival campaign. “We started basically from nothing again,” John laughed, “except this time we had our name and goodwill. That has carried us through very well over the last seven-plus years.”

A Responsive, Personable, and Proactive Lender

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, Fern Street Circus had to adapt. It immediately started offering online classes on Zoom to youth in the community. Amazingly, without the scheduling constraints of working out of its local rec center, the nonprofit’s teaching artists were able to connect and serve after-school families even more deeply. Additionally, Fern Street began to do socially distanced performances for families standing in line to pick up groceries at their local food distribution sites with the San Diego Unified School District. Between May and mid-November 2020, John estimates that Fern Street Circus did nearly 40 events and reached upwards of 12,000 community members.

While those community-based performances and classes buoyed the nonprofit’s spirits, it still required funding in order to remain operational; however, when PPP funding became available, John was skeptical that Fern Street Circus would even qualify. Unfortunately, neither of the big-name banks that the nonprofit had banked with for 30 years was helpful. After “striking out,” John received a note from Self-Help Federal Credit Union informing him that the credit union had received funding support through The California Endowment to distribute PPP loans. Self-Help is a low-income designated credit union that was chartered in 2008 to build a network of branches that serve working families and underserved communities. Self-Help currently has nearly 80,000 customers across California, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and it has over $1.2 billion in assets. CNote partners with low-income designated credit unions like Self-Help across the country through its Promise Account program.

John recognized Self-Help’s name — the credit union has an office two blocks away from Fern Street Circus’ gym. He sent an email, and this time, the person on the other end wrote back with good news. “From the start, they were responsive and personable,” John said. “A real human person was assigned to walk me through the process, which was a very sharp contrast to [those big banks], which were impenetrable. Self-Help was proactive, and they helped me at every stage. Once we got the PPP, they kept in touch afterwards.”

That ongoing communication proved critical for Fern Street Circus. Not only was the nonprofit able to have its first $30,000 loan forgiven, but it was also able to receive additional funding during the second round of PPP lending. According to John, the first thing the nonprofit did with the PPP money was to hire seven teaching artists who weren’t getting unemployment but who had great need. Fern Street Circus put them to work leading classes and supporting students near and far. “That’s a concrete result of what we were able to do through the PPP loan. I’m pretty savvy and well-educated, and I was nonplussed by the PPP application,” John said. “We would not have gotten funding without Self-Help. It had a huge impact on us.”

A Circus In Good Hands

Given all of the years that John has been involved with Fern Street Circus, it’s not surprising that he has countless memories to smile back on; however, when asked to share one of his most memorable moments with the community arts organization, interestingly, he chose to recount a story about crossing a street and falling down. Ever the producer, John is usually the first person to arrive at an event and the last one to leave, and on this particular production date, he happened to be carrying an open container of oil (although he doesn’t remember exactly why). As he hustled from one side of the street to the other, John slipped; yet, as he tumbled to the ground, he managed to prevent the oil from spilling.

Although he doesn’t know why this particular memory lodged itself in his brain, the story is representative of John’s innate drive to put others ahead of himself, including Fern Street Circus, and as the nonprofit moves further into its third decade of existence, John is intent on ensuring that its future isn’t tethered to him. In that way, Fern Street Circus recently hired its second full-time employee, Marcela Mercado, a well-respected community member and activist who serves as the organization’s general manager. Additionally, the nonprofit recently opened its Outdoor Circus Community Center in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, giving Fern Street Circus a temporary space to host after-school programs, show rehearsals, and performances by the Circus and other artists. According to John, the organization’s long-term dream is to hire more staff and to have its own building where it can continue to serve families and transform neighborhoods through circus arts performance and teaching.

At 70, John jokes that he’s not getting any younger, and although he’d like to remain involved with Fern Street Circus for a long, long time, he wants other leaders in the neighborhood — who, he says, don’t share his white privilege — to be a part of the organization’s long-term vision and future. “I want to phase myself out,” John said. “It’s not just about age. What has kept us vital is that we’re equal parts circus arts and social justice, and for us to be truly representative of a neighborhood as broad and diverse as ours, Fern Street Circus’ leadership needs to reflect that.”

Learn More

• Fern Street Circus is a nonprofit that serves families and transforms neighborhoods through performance and teaching of circus arts.
• Self-Help Federal Credit Union was chartered in 2008 to build a network of branches that serves working families and underserved communities. Serving more than 78,000 members, Self-Help Federal is one of the fastest-growing low-income designated credit unions in the country. 
• CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great Credit Unions like Self-Help, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.

Ethel Brooks

For many people, a cancer diagnosis can derail them. For Ethel Brooks, it ignited her. It was January 2017 when Ethel learned that she had breast cancer. Her mind instantly concocted the worst-case scenario, and her first thought was about what she was going to leave behind for her three daughters and seven grandchildren if something happened to her. However, the moment she found out that her chances of surviving were high, she chose to fight like never before. “When I saw that I was going to live,” she said, “I took off like lightning. They say cancer breaks people, but cancer gave me strength and made me look toward the future. I wasn’t gonna let it take me down because I have too much to live for.”

Ethel went through 21 weeks of chemotherapy; yet, she didn’t let that keep her from her day job at Franklin Primary Health Center in Mobile, Alabama, where she was hired in 1986 as a 20-year-old Medical Receptionist. Over the years, Ethel has skyrocketed up the ranks, with stints as an intake clerk, accounts receivable, office manager, operation manager, and most recently, billing supervisor.  Amazingly, Ethel would do her chemotherapy on Mondays, and she’d be back in the office on Tuesday to finish out the rest of the workweek. Eventually, after the hair loss, a double mastectomy, and seven surgeries, Ethel triumphed over cancer with the support of her mother, eight siblings, and daughter Darralyn, who surrounded her with love and support throughout her treatment. Additionally, the fight helped her to realize that she needed to start thinking about how she could create a financial legacy to pass down to her family when the time came.

That’s when Ethel partnered with Mr. William McGlasker, a local contractor and concrete specialist, to start her own business. She’d met Mr. McGlasker at Franklin Primary Health Center, after which he’d built a driveway for her. The two became good friends and he told her that he had his own construction company, but was limited on how much money he could make since he did not have his subcontractor license.  He suggested that Ethel get her license and create a company that would, in essence, absorb his business. In 2017, Mr. McGlasker dissolved his business and Ethel started Bennett Construction. All of Mr. McGlasker’s employees joined the new company, and Mr. McGlasker stayed on as superintendent. “To be honest,” Ethel said, “he was really the person who pushed me to take this leap of faith. He’s been doing this for 50-some years, and once people learned that he was with Bennett Construction, everything fell into place.”

Ethel went back to college to work toward receiving a bachelor’s degree in business management so that she’d be better equipped to manage her company. Meanwhile, in August 2019, Bennett Construction was awarded a $600,000 contract from Mobile Asphalt Company. That paved the way for Ethel to begin renting a building for her business and to land additional smaller contracts from the City of Mobile. Ethel’s next goal is to be certified as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), which will allow her to bid on bigger Department of Transportation contracts that will give her more income. Her primary goal is to become a General Contractor so that she can have other subcontractors working under her. Once she achieves that, Bennett Construction will be able to bid for contracts worth millions of dollars.

One Step at a Time

In the short term, however, Ethel wanted to purchase a dump truck, which could help her make an additional $10,000 a week for her business, given that 100 million tons of dirt need to be removed from a construction site in Leroy, Alabama. That’s what brought Ethel to TruFund, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that invests in small businesses in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and New York. CNote partners with CDFIs like TruFund in communities across the country, providing business coaching, funding loans, and empowering local entrepreneurs like Ethel.

Ethel was already familiar with TruFund. Last year, during the pandemic, she attended a virtual presentation hosted by the City of Mobile to learn more about the PPP process. She connected with TruFund, who was able to help her secure PPP funding for Bennett Construction’s payroll.

Through a TruFund small business loan, Ethel was able to purchase the dump truck she so desperately wanted. “Ms. [Tamika] McNeal has been very helpful,” she said. “There were several times I would get discouraged but she reminded me to take it one step at a time. When I thought about it like that, then it wasn’t so bad.”

Incredibly, as Bennett Construction continues to grow and to land more and more work across both Mobile and Alabama, Ethel has continued to work her 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. job at Franklin Primary Health Center. She’s thankful that her supervisors have been so flexible and understanding with the arrangement, as sometimes Ethel has to go to a job site for Bennett Construction during working hours; however, once she gets her DBE and primary contractor licenses, Ethel doesn’t think she’s going to be able to balance both jobs with her side hustle. Instead, she’s readying herself to make Bennett Construction her main focus. Mr. McGlasker, who is 77, similarly has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. “He told me he’s going to work until God tells him he can’t work anymore,” Ethel said. “That’s what keeps him going, so I don’t argue with him.”