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Microenterprise / Yossi’s Story |
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Yossi’s first job after leaving a talmudical academy was teaching Bible at a local yeshiva elementary school. In early 2008, with his savings and family loans, he started a small wholesale children’s clothing business marketing to Chassidic retailers in the New York area. He also opened a small basement retail store in Borough Park to sell his merchandise (produced in China and India) directly to customers.
At the end of the school year, Yossi participated in our basic business training course in Williamsburg and, with our help, created a simple business plan. This past spring, he borrowed $25,000, a critical expansion of working capital that enabled him to embark on a life of complete self-employment by significantly increasing the revenues from his business. Yossi’s business has done well despite the economic downturn and he is positioned to support his growing family in dignity. |
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Responding to the Recession / Sveta and Valery’s Story |
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Sveta and Valery, both 63, came to New York at the peak of the immigration from the Former Soviet Union in 1995. Sveta, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry, works as a hospital lab technician. Valery, a mathematician, retrained here as a mainframe programmer and ultimately became a home health care aide. Last December, he lost his job and, with it, his health insurance. Before becoming reemployed several months later, he incurred thousands of dollars of medical costs which he covered with credit cards. Our $5,000 loan enabled Sveta and Valery to repay high-interest credit card debt and regain their financial equilibrium. |
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Day School Teachers Housing / Adam’s Story |
Adam had taught at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaways for five years when he, his wife Shira, and their two small children outgrew their rental apartment. They wanted to buy a house, but had trouble saving for a down payment on a teacher's salary.
Adam -- who has both rabbinical ordination and a master's degree in education from Yeshiva University -- used our Day School Teachers Housing Loan Program to borrow $20,000 for a significant portion of the down payment and closing costs on a three-bedroom house. Today, the family has a home, and the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaways counts Adam as a long-term faculty member. |
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Immigrant Retraining / Sergei’s Story |
Sergei and his wife Masha were doctors in Arkhangelsk, a Russian city in the Arctic Circle, before immigrating to the United States with their two teenage children. The only related work they could find was as home attendants, and they struggled to support their family. In 1999, a year after immigrating, Sergei borrowed $7,500 to pay for a year-long course in nuclear medicine technology.
Today, Sergei works as a nuclear medicine technician at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and earns $75,000 a year. He paid off his loan and became a donor to the Free Loan Society so he could help other immigrant New Yorkers. |
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Adoption / David and Michelle’s Story |
David and Michelle Slotnick desperately wanted a child. After five years of trying to conceive, the couple was eager to begin the adoption process, but they had spent most of their savings on infertility treatments and faced $30,000 in adoption costs.
The Slotnicks borrowed $15,000 for adoption expenses to adopt an eleven-month-old girl whom they named Sierra Vanessa. Michelle said: "David and I are so in love with Sierra. She’s fulfilled our dreams of having a family.''
A year later, we made a second loan to the couple so they could adopt Sierra’s cousin. Her name is Miranda. |
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Microenterprise / Irina’s Story |
Irina immigrated to New York from Moscow eight years ago with her husband and small son. Irina is an early-childhood educator, but could only find work in a Russian home-based day care center that paid little. Her husband worked as a maintenance worker.
They saved for years and scraped together money for a down payment on a small home in Brooklyn. They wanted to start their own day care center in their home, but didn't have any money left for furniture and playground equipment. That's where our loan came in: Irina borrowed $25,000, interest-free, made the renovations to her home, and now runs a thriving business. |
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Microenterprise / Mariya and Yelena’s Story |
Mariya, along with her husband and three teenage children, immigrated to New York in 1990 from Nalchik, Russia. Mariya is a piano teacher and musician, but was unable to find work in her field. She enrolled in beauty school and became a cosmetologist, while her husband, who was a civil engineer in Russia, became an auto mechanic. Together, they earned enough to cover basic expenses.
In 1995, Mariya’s sister Yelena, along with her husband and two children, immigrated to New York. Yelena, who was a nurse in Russia, also enrolled in beauty school, while her husband started a pizza store and ambulette service. But he was later disabled by a heart attack and the family struggled financially.
Their luck turned in 2005, when Mariya and Yelena had an opportunity to buy the salon where Mariya worked. We helped the sisters develop a business plan and provided a $25,000 loan for them to buy the salon. It is an increasingly successful business, putting both families on the road to financial security. |
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Microenterprise / Rafail and Olga’s Story |
Rafail, with his wife Olga and four children, immigrated to New York in 2002 from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Rafail, a mechanical engineer, worked for a pittance in a Russian grocery store and Olga, a nurse, worked as a cosmetologist. Entrepreneurial by nature, Rafail and Olga had opened a store/café in Tashkent after the collapse of the Soviet system, when state wages were often paid late, if at all.
In 2007, they had the opportunity to buy the grocery store where Rafail worked in Queens. The couple invested their life savings (the proceeds of the sale of their house in Tashkent) and also borrowed from relatives for the purchase. A few months later, they approached the Society for a $25,000 loan to fund the purchase of additional refrigeration for kosher products and additional kosher and regular inventory, so they could compete better against other Russian groceries in Rego Park, the heart of traditional Bukharian Queens.
Today, Rafail and Olga work full-time in their thriving small business, with evening/weekend help from their 18-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter, both Queens College students. The family is on the road to financial security. |
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