2023-09-14 22:42:02
Jennifer López returned to her city to see how the Latina businesswomen were doing.
The star visited 20 Latina business owners in her home borough of The Bronx on Friday, a year after partnering with a charity to help boost Latina businesses with loan capital.
Lissette Mims is one of the business owners who received credit capital from Grameen America, which partnered with the multi-hyphenate star to help accelerate her goal of deploying $14 billion in credit capital to 600,000 low-income Latina business owners in the country by 2030.
Her dream was to be a beautician and now, at 54, she is the owner of the Bella Shique spa, where López held her event on Friday.
“I’ve worked my whole life and I still have a passion. No matter how old I am, my dream is worth it,” Mims said.
In a climate where Latino-owned businesses are less likely to receive loans from national banks than white-owned businesses, according to the Entrepreneurship Status Report Latino 2022 from the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, this program offers financing to women living in poverty. According to Lopez’s team, Grameen America, founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus in 2008, has projected an unprecedented disbursement of $1 billion in loans to Latina women this year alone. In addition to loans, women also receive training and education to help them run their small businesses.
“It is something that changes your life not being able to finance your business or have an idea or a dream that you cannot develop because you simply lack capital and you go to a bank and they do not give it to you because you are Latina, because they do not believe it is something they should invest in,” López told the women.
Among the women who attended the event and received support through the program were a woman who owned a flower shop and another who owned a tire store.
“When I saw some of the women there [el viernes], we all said how inspiring he is. Some of these women have three kids and multiple jobs and don’t know where they would be without Jennifer,” Mims said.
Lopez talked to them about their businesses and learned how they have been doing since receiving their business loans. She also shared personal stories about why she feels inspired to give back.
“I know my grandmother would have loved to have her own shop, she was a seamstress, she made beautiful clothes. “My mother was a Tupperware lady, in her own way she ran her own business,” López continued. “If she could have had her own store or had enough money to do it, she never thought that way. She didn’t even have a chance to think that way.”
Mims said that through Lopez’s mentoring he is reminded “every day that we must move forward. I have always been hired and fired my entire life and I am very grateful for where I am today.”
Lopez wants women to remember to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
“If you want to be successful, if you want to be extraordinary, all you have to do is not give up,” the star said.
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