Group's no-interest loans help small businesses grow
Jessica Mortarotti dishes out samples of her ice cream and sorbet infused with fresh-cut chocolate mint, rose petals or lemon and basil at local farmers markets, building her Carmela Ice Cream Co. one spoonful at a time.
The 30-year-old co-owner, who launched the part-time Los Angeles business last summer with $10,000 from the Jewish Free Loan Assn., invested $15,000 of her own money last week to buy the bigger equipment she needs to meet surprisingly hot demand.
"We didn't expect to need new equipment so fast," Mortarotti said.
Every 10 minutes, her new gear can churn and freeze 25 pints of ice cream or sorbet packed with herbs, spices, flowers, nuts and fruits. That's five times the capacity of her original equipment, which she bought with the proceeds of her interest-free loan.
The loan was made from one of five little-known micro-enterprise funds managed by the Los Angeles nonprofit Jewish association. The group, part of an international network of interest-free loan agencies, got its start in 1904 when several Jewish businessmen pooled their money to help new emigres. The association now makes loans of as much as $15,000 for start-ups or existing small businesses.
The group of funds, which are created from private donations, total about $1.75 million.
A relatively new, nonsectarian fund for female entrepreneurs made 13 loans in the first six months of the year, compared with four in the same period last year, according to the association.
"Our micro-enterprise loans are made to people who are really not able to get money from any other sources," said Mark M. Meltzer, chief executive of the organization, which boasts a repayment rate of 99.5%.
His agency manages about two dozen other funds for emergencies and student loans, among other needs. It targets the Jewish community but has at least a dozen funds open to non-Jewish applicants.
The group gets 12 to 30 requests a month for its business loans, with many applicants referred by a small-business development organization such as SCORE, the former Service Corps of Retired Executives, or Los Angeles-based PACE, the Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment.
"It's a really nice opportunity" for qualified clients, said Jackie Jones, director of the Women's Business Center at PACE in downtown Los Angeles. She referred Mortarotti to the Jewish association's program.
