Community Involvement


IOCP

We are proud to offer pro-bono marketing consulting services to Interfaith Outreach Community Partners. Founded in 1979, Interfaith Outreach & Community Partners (IOCP) strengthens the 8 local communities it serves by creating opportunities that change lives. http://www.iocp.org

The Page Education Foundation

The Page Education Foundation strives to increase participation of Minnesota’s youth of color in postsecondary education. We are committed to fostering educational success, personal responsibility and developing the potential of young people of color.
http://page-ed.org/

Hearing and Service Dogs of MN

Hearing and Service Dogs of Minnesota is dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for people who are deaf, hard of hearing or disabled by creating mutually beneficial partnerships with specially-trained dogs.  We envision a future in which every person who needs and wants an assistance dog can have one. http://www.hsdm.org/

Kiva

In 2006, we traveled to Tanzania, Africa, and we left a little bit of our hearts over there.  We searched for a way to honor the hard working spirit we discovered hidden amongst some of the world’s poorest people (economically, that is). Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.  It is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. A portion of the proceeds from all Small Business Mavericks sales go toward helping these entrepreneurs. http://www.kiva.com

Entrepreneurs we have helped:

Lulu

This is 33-year-old Lulu Ramadhani from Dar es Salaam. She is married with 2 children: Hussein who is 13 years old, and Swalene, who is 11 years old. Lulu has been running a beauty salon since 2004. Hers is the place where you can buy long hair, short hair, curly hair, straight hair, red hair, blue hair, and then have it attached to your head, woven, cut, or braided, and made to look like your own. She works at the business 9-12 hours a day, 6 days a week. She is requesting a loan of $250 in order to expand her business. Lulu thanks you for her support!

Hidaya

Jambo (Greetings) from Tanzania! This is 42-year-old Hidaya Beho from Dar es Salaam. She is married with three children, aged from 13 to 23 years old. Since 2007, Hidaya has been running a shop that sells traditional clothing worn by Tanzanian women, called kanga and vitenge. The kanga is a piece of printed cotton fabric often with a border along all four sides. It is printed using the silkscreen method with its pattern in frames. Kitenge (the Swahili plural is vitenge) is a cotton fabric with wax print, printed by using rotary printing machines. Kitenge is a communicating textile - the various colors, patterns, writings and symbols represent moods, feelings, cultures, and traditions of native African people.  She is requesting a loan of $250 in order to purchase additional inventory at bulk prices in order to expand her business. She thanks you in advance for supporting her!

Norena

Norena John is 46 years old and is married with four children. Norena runs a viewing centre where teenagers play computer games. She also sells drinks and pure water. In addition to this shop she has a kiosk where she sells phone calls and rechargeable phone cards. She has been in this business for a long time. She buys ice blocks to cool drinks in these coolers that are showing in the picture. She is requesting a loan to purchase a fridge to cool her drinks. Usually, she loses her customers when she does not get blocks to cool the drinks. She will also purchase more rechargeable phone cards to sell. She says "thank you" to all of the people that made this loan possible.

Funmilola Ochica

Funmilola is 32 years old and married with two children. She renders catering services to people in her community. She is requesting the loan of N100,000 to purchase more catering materials to enable her to render more catering services. She says thanks to Kiva lenders.

Helen

Helen is 40 years old and married with three children. She sells medicines and bottles of wine in her shop. This business is her source of income. Helen is requesting the loan amount of 100,000 NGN to purchase more medicines and bottles of wine to sell. She sends her thanks to all Kiva lenders.

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Constance

Constance is 39 years old. She is married and has three children.
All her children are in school, making Constance so happy. She owns and operates a grocery shop and sells items like sugar, vegetable oil, bottled water, skimmed powdered milk, biscuits, etc. in her neighborhood. She has been selling grocery items for 10 years to take care of the family. She has no regrets for what she does, but her challenge is having funds to buy more raw materials. She takes delivery of stock from Kumasi central market and retails to her customers. Therefore, she requests a loan to purchase more crates of assorted drinks, bags of sugar, cartons of vegetable oil, boxes of biscuits, etc. to increase her inventory. She hopes to improve her savings to support her children in school.