Point. We were created in 1897 by a group of people studying the tora. Really the mission of the agency comes directly from the tora. This group of individual took a look and said look at this, it shows in the tora that gods tell moses not to charge interest basically to his people, and that it is really important not to benefit from another persons troubles. Based on that, they decided to make it reality. And they created it initially called acts of loving kindness and later became known as the hebrew free loan. What they did was each agreed to donate . 25 into a pot each month until they had enough money to make their first loan. The loans are always still 120 years later interest free, primarily to members of the Jewish Community. The loans are paid back over time. We have an amazing repayment rate, still 120 years later. Our repayment rate is 99. 75 . Wow we will talk more about concrete programs and have more people that will talk in a personal way about the way they elevated their Economic Health and vitality through this. If we rewind to 1897 in San Francisco in the state of california, can you talk a little bit about what was going on that actually had these visionaries say we need to do this on behalf of our own community for our future . Because its quite a vision and quite a legacy. It is. Its one that i am proud to help usher into this century and beyond. What they were facing at the time, when you think of the California Gold rush, we had a lot of immigrants who were new to the community, who were part of the effort to pave the better path for their own families. Jews who were coming here at that time faced a lot of anti semitism. It was difficult for them to get any kind of Financial Support that others might be able to avail themselves of. So this was an opportunity to provide for their own members of the community by donating a little bit of money to create that pool of funds. So i think there were some very real economic hardships that they were all facing at the time, and they felt this would make it a little bit easier. Wow so you know, in 1897 to 2017, thats just interesting no matter what the political structures are in the San Francisco bay area, our state, or really the nation or world, issues around how people come anew to a place, whether you are an immigrant or a transplant, the way you come to a new place with a new vision. You have a lot of energy but you may not have the money. Exactly. Thats the marriage. I am just wondering as we turn to folks who have benefited if you can comment on the economic marriage of how you bring Human Capacity to an economic support system and what that does to build resilience in the community . Thank you for that question. Our mission is really to help people become and remain self sufficient at the core of what we do. We do that by means of providing interest free loans much like a Family Member might. Especially for immigrants and others living in an environment where they dont have that Family Support to provide the necessary financial means. We are like an extended family offering that key to their future, whether it is to help them get back on track financially, we offer personal loans, emergency loans, unemployment loans, debt consolidation loans, anything where people are having financial troubles. We also provide loans like a family would for people that are trying to really fulfill their dreams. So it might be education loans. It might be Business Loans, adoption and fertility loans. A range of issues that influence Economic Vitality. We are going to take a quick break and come back to our wit loan in just a moment. Good morning. Welcome back to mosaic. I am rabbi eric weiss. I am honored to be your host. We are talking about Economic Vitality in faith communities. Cindy is the executive director of hebrew free loan. With her is greg matt, a Business Loan recipient. Welcome. Thank you so much. Greg, lets just jump in and ask you what your experience is with hebrew free loan. Sure. A while back i had a dream of starting my own food truck. It was a phils coffee truck. I was with the company for many years and decided to start something fresh and new. I wanted to build one myself. I got the approval and okay from phil. But the only caveat was i had to fund it, build it, and design it. I was really excited about it until i got to a point where i was not able to find the funds and was running into all kinds of problems with banks and so forth because i had no Prior Experience in owning a business. So i was told that there is such a program as a hebrew free loan actually from my mom who used to work for an agency with cindy in the past. So she said well go ahead and look it up and check it out. I went in there and met cindy. I told her about my concept, my idea, my passions, and what i wanted to do. Cindy was very supportive and went through the process of making it happen. Thats kind of how it happened. In a moment, it will be interesting to talk about the process of doing this and hue hebrew free loans sees its role in it. We live in a part of the country in a stereotypical way and certainly not just here typically but in lived truth day to day that is filled with the notion of the human spirit and ideas, entrepreneurialism, how do you make a dream come true. I am wondering as you were thinking through your dream of doing things, what was it about this drum, what was it about a food truck . How did you come to this concept so you could go to cindy and hebrew free loan and answer basic questions about how come a food truck, how come phils coffee . Why this, why that . Can you give us some of your entrepreneurial spirit. Absolutely. I have always wanted to have something thats my own. I always wanted to work for myself. Its bigger than me. I always believed in our company and what we try to do. Phil of phils coffee gave me this opportunity to have something that i can call my own. It came in the form of a food truck. I was passionate about it. I was excited about it, so i have was determined to do whatever it took to make it happen. I basically wanted to help him grow the company in other ways and yet still have something that i can call my own. That was really the whole idea, just to kind of have a start in Business Life and grow it, make it happen. That was why. Thats wonderful. It was really that drive that i witnessed when greg came into the office. I could tell he had that passion, which is something i look for when i am vetting our Business Loan applicants. I could tell he had an idea. He had a path. He knew exactly what he needed to do to make it successful. His financials were together and organized and clear. I could see that it was a viable business and furthermore i have a committee of very successful Business People who are able to evaluate it. And i saw that he had the drive to really see the plan through. That was really what impressed me about greg. Cindy, can you give us a little bit of a sense of what happens on the inside about hebrew free loan comes to a yes . Passion, business plan, other elements . What gets to a yes . First of all, there is a lengthier process for Business Loans than other loan requests that come our way. But it really is meant to vet the business, the viability of the business plan. We look at the financials. We look at projections for the coming year. We look at the assumptions made behind the projections. We look at how well the person is situated, how advisors he or she has, the support financial and otherwise around them to be sure they can weather any storms. We like to see our funds we provide, well provide up to 50,000 for a Business Loan. Sometimes thats all the person needs. Sometimes its a piece of the puzzle. We like to understand how our money will fit into their overall plan to make it possible. So great. We have to take a break. But before we do, greg, can you give us a sense of what keeps you going in your business . What is it that drives you and feeds you as you move forward . Thats a great question because when you own a business, there are a lot of ups and downs, you know. You are going to have your good days, fun days. Then you are going to have down days. What keeps it going is we are part of a community and every day we show up and we have people that love us, support us, and have for many, many years. I am doing this because, number one, we have built a great time and we are offering people jobs. Its something that i have always believed in. If you can grow the business then you are helping yourself and also the people around you. Of course just being there for those clientele of yours, their families, those people who really believe in you and something to thrive on. Just the nature of growth, you know. I just want to keep pushing and growing and doing bigger, better things. Thank you so much. We are going to say goodbye to greg in a moment and return to mosaic and have the conversation continue with cindy, hebrew free loan. So you see son, good manners are important. Should i go through it again . Yes. Yes please. Yes please. Exactly. Always say please, thank you, your welcome, excuse me, sit up straight, hold doors open for ladies, if a doors locked knock first. Dont burp, dont swear, dont stare, dont use bad language, dont talk with your mouth full, keep your elbows off the table what table . And dont interrupt. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. On the bus, give your seat up to anyone who has trouble standing. Bottom line, treat others the way youd want to be treated. Got it . Got it good talk. [announcer] most parenting is hard to do in just two minutes. But 2 minutes twice a day making sure they brush is easier and it could help save them from a lifetime of tooth pain. Good morning. Welcome back to mosaic. I am rabbi eric weiss. I am honored to be your host. We are in a wonderful conversation about ways Jewish Community looks at building Economic Vitality and resilience in the community. I would like to introduce you to cindy, the executive director of hebrew free loans. Also terry, who was the recipient of a loan. Tell us what your experience with hebrew free loan has been. Sure. I received an unemployment loan. It was about five years ago. I was laid off from my job. It was 2012. We were still coming out of the recession. I was laid off from my job. Thats always a hard challenge. For me, it happened at a time when all the other things in life were going on, more things than i could have imagined. I was diagnosed with breast cancer, had to put my house up for a short sale. We lost our family home. I had a teenage son. He is older now. He was 15 and went through a Serious Mental Health crisis. I was dealing with all of these things, and i didnt know how we were going to survive. A friend suggested hebrew free loan. So you went to hebrew free loan and got what is called an unemployment loan . Officially the name of the program is recent unemployment. Somebody has to have been unemployed sometime in the past year. Its meant to be we we call it jewish unemployment. Its supposed to supplement what they might get from the state. It is difficult for people in a situation like terry to survive just receiving the small amount you can get through normal unemployment programs through the state. Cindy, i am wondering if you can talk a little about your experience with terry or also terry, you can chime in about the ways in which you used the loan. An unemployment loan i imagine is different than building a Business Loan and you have a different way of understanding coming through an economic challenge. Maybe terry you can talk about how you came through the unemployment and the ways in which really the Financial Assistance helped you. I am not sure what the right word is, kind of bridged your life to a next place you would land better. Absolutely. Thats a great question. The way the unemployment loan works is you are allotted a certain amount of money every month for up to six months if you remain unemployed. You also have to check in with cindy once a month or with your loan officer once a month to let them know how it is going, your job search, etc. That was actually a big form of support. I would check in with cindy. She would ask me how my job search was going, would connect me with people saying have you talked to this person or that person . It was a practical support and helped me pay the bills during that period. Even more, really it felt like a very it was a big emotional support. Who else but your family is going to give you a loan . I dont have a job. Ive got all these expenses. I am not sure i can repay you. But i am sure i have can. With unemployment loan you dont have to repay until three months after you have gotten the last loan check. You have nine months interest free no loan payments. Who else will you get that help from . Cindy, terrys story reminds me a little bit to gregs story who got a Business Loan. If you go to a Financial Institution like a bank or credit union typically the way you get a loan is really on an economic filter. The relationship is from the Financial Institution perspective that we want to have by x date of a month x dollars to pay. Thats kind of it. Thats the limit of the relationship. Through hebrew free loan, it seems that you are engaging the whole person. Whether it is a Business Loan or other kinds of loan programs, certainly with terrys perspective, there is a certain kind of assistance that you are getting. So it is kind of emotional experience, economic, that really there are different human elements that go into building resilience. I am wondering if you can talk a little bit about what the more holistic approach is about in the sustainability of finances. Sure. To me, its essential because as you mentioned, astery described her situation, there were so many more things going on in her life than simply needing an infusion of cash. We see ourselves as somewhere between a family, a social service agency, and a Financial Institution. We are all of that rolled into one. We try to meet people where theyre at. Every person who comes in who has initial need for some kind of cash, we get to know them as a person. Its a large part we believe also in a self serving way why we have such a high repayment rate. We really build those connections with people that are life long. I can tell you stories about just about every loan recipient who has walked through our doors. We get to know them as people. They get to know us. They feel a commitment to repaying us. We feel a commitment to help them in every aspect of their life if we have the ability to do so. Wonderful. We will take a quick break and come back to mosaic in just a moment. For more information about hebrew free loan, visit their website at www. Hflasf. Org, or call 415 5469902. Welcome back to mosaic. I am rabbi eric weiss. I am honored to be your host. We are in the middle of a wonderful conversation about economic viability of the Jewish Community in the bay area. I would like to reintroduce you to the executive director of hebrew free loan and terry, who was an unemployment loan recipient. Terry, i understand there is a wonderful evolution in your particular story with hebrew free loan. There is. This is not what happens with most of our loan recipients or the unemployment loan recipients. Cindy, did you want to tell what happened . It was actually a few years after she had received the unemployment loan that we posted that we had a job available. Terry contacted me and said do you think i might be appropriate for the job . She was already working. She had resolved a lot of her financial woes and other troubles. And i said you would be perfect for this job. She had really impressed me during the interview period and beyond. I was delighted to bring her on board because who better to interview potential loan recipients but someone who had been through it on the other side. Today, terry is a loan officer with us as well as a Development Associate helping to raise funds for the agency. Thats wonderful. It reminds me that any agency has lots of components that make it viable in and of itself. I am wondering if you can talk about the broader holistic approach. How does hebrew free loans receive funds to then otherwise distribute to the community . You have mentioned in 1897 a few men gave quarters and created the first initial pot. Can you talk about today what that initial pot looks like for hebrew free loan . Also if you can tie in in the way we talked about a holistic approach, i would imagine that as people become more economically viable they too start to give back. I am just wondering if you have any sense of the ways in which recipients become fill an throw in the community and give back at large . Sure. We are still dependent upon donations of the community 120 years later. Our numbers look a little bit different. Our first loan was 10 in 1897. Today we have over 15 million in assets. Most of that is in the community. We have almost 10 million out in the community, helping over 1000 loan recipients. As they pay that money back, we move money forward to help others. We are always trying to grow the pot because the more we have in assets, the more we are able to give to members of the community. The rest is invested. Thats a large part of what terry is helping with. To answer your question, you can tell about the full circle club, we have a program to help people who have been loan recipients who come full circle from being a borrower to being a donor. Wow, believe it or not we have 30 seconds left. Can you say in a moment how people might be able to contact hebrew free loan to actually support its work in the community . Absolutely. They can go to our website. We have a new website with a very user friendly donation page. They can call us. The full circle club has periodic gatherings where we welcome people. Wonderful. Thank you so much for being with us. We encourage you to think about this issue in our community and at large. Thank you for joining us here on mosaic. The show this morning. Everyone ooking up so welcome to bay sunday. I am your host kenny choy. A lot of great ideas on the show this morning. The way you serve meals makes them taste even better. Here to show us how its done and done right and how to set them yourself, welcome to bay sunday. This looks fantastic. Thank you. Tell us what we have . What are the secrets of setting the table . 80 of perception in your mind comes through your eyes. So it sets all your other
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