Category Archives: Articles

Buy Local to Help Your Community

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Red River, NM

Consumer studies and statistics are clear: There’s value in buying locally, especially during the holidays. Local businesses are more than twice as generous to hometown nonprofits that fulfill community-specific needs, according to the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), and they are more loyal and accountable to the people they employ and live among. Local businesses are typically small, and this sector of the economy employs about half of the private sector workforce.

Shopping locally reduces environmental impacts associated with transportation. It supports businesses that offer products and services that reflect local tastes and a community’s distinctive character.

But the best reason to spend money at a local business rather than an absentee-owned business — including during the critical holiday shopping season — is the financial recycling that results.

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NMSBA Program Improves Production

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FreshPure Waters was founded to replace single-use plastic water bottles by providing consumers with a more eco-friendly refillable bulk water option. Its system specializes in high-pH alkaline, reverse osmosis, and deionized water, all in one machine. However, the rapidly growing demand for its purified water systems outpaced its production capabilities.

FreshPure Waters applied for assistance through the New Mexico Small Business Assistance (NMSBA) Program, a unique opportunity that brings the technology and expertise of New Mexico’s national laboratories and their partners to solve problems that inhibit business growth.

The NMSBA Program paired FreshPure Waters with Wesley Eccles and Jeff Abrams, directors at New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (New Mexico MEP), to lead the initiative to optimize production, improve system maintenance, and expand market reach.

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Resilience and Credit Support Native Owned Business

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Small businesses in rural and tribal communities often lack access to affordable credit—especially during health or economic crises—putting their survival at risk. Resilience and credit from the nonprofit lender RCAC helped Native American-owned Earth & Sky Floral Designs get back to business after a health setback.

Earth & Sky Floral Designs and Gallery, LLC is a 100% Native American woman-owned business located on the Pueblo of Laguna reservation. Owned by Shayai Lucero of the Acoma and Laguna Pueblos, the business provides full-service floral arrangements for weddings, funerals, birthdays, holidays and local ceremonies. Shayai operates the shop from a renovated lodge on her property and employs seasonal part-time help during peak times like Mother’s Day and graduations. 

In 2023, Shayai faced a series of severe health setbacks—including a COVID-19 infection, complications and hospitalization—that forced her to close the business for seven weeks. Without incoming revenue and facing more than $49,000 in medical bills, the future of Earth & Sky Floral Designs was in jeopardy. But it quickly became clear the shop played a vital role in the life of the community. Shayai’s customers rallied behind her, affirming that the business was essential—not just as a service provider, but as a trusted part of local traditions. 

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Loan Funds a New Sense of Purpose

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Cambri Gardner with her mother Tori Greer, RN
The Loan Fund helped Cambri Gardner change careers and find a new sense of purpose.

Cambri Gardner learned about the medical spa industry through her mother, a registered nurse working at a Colorado medical spa. Gardner now works alongside her mother at Roswell Aesthetics & Wellness, the business Gardner purchased in 2023 with the help of the nonprofit lender The Loan Fund.

Gardner had spent much of her professional career in sales and was ready for a change. “Sales was not fun for me,” said Gardner. “I really didn’t feel like I was benefiting people.”

In 2018, Gardner began working at a medical spa and was soon studying to obtain laser certification. Becoming an esthetician gave her a new sense of purpose, she said. “Seeing the changes that benefit people not just on the inside but on the outside, I felt was more life-changing for me.”

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Reaching Rural with Small Business Loans

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Carlos and Juany Chico went to several national banks for a loan to expand their lakeside food stand to a brick-and-mortar restaurant location. Like most small and startup entrepreneurs, they were turned down because they didn’t fit the lending requirements of traditional banks. That’s when they turned to the nonprofit lender DreamSpring for a small loan to fund operating and inventory expenses at the new location.

Chico’s Tortas y Pinas Lokas, now known simply as Chico’s Mexican Food, now operates out of a former KFC Restaurant building on Historic Route 66 in Santa Rosa and serves patrons in nearby Tucumcari from a food truck. The business is thriving, thanks to the tight-knit family of 12 and other staff, along with several DreamSpring loans that have enabled the company’s growth.

“DreamSpring is a good option,” Carlos said for people who don’t meet the lending requirements of traditional banks.

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This is How to Start a Business

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Joshua Arzabala knew he lacked business knowledge, but he had $50 to buy a used lawn mower and the will to forge a new path. Arzabala started Arzi’s Lawn Care, now an eight-person company in Hobbs that offers a wide variety of home services, including landscaping and yard maintenance for residential and commercial customers. Arzabala and his wife, Paloma, received business financing and consulting from the nonprofit business development organization WESST.

Arzabala contacted WESST for help to grow his small business. Meeting with the Hobbs-based team of WESST professionals, Arzabala was able to create a strong business strategy. With the team’s support, business documentation and administration became a breeze, and the new businessman could focus on customers, serving those he had and obtaining new ones. Arzabala worked all day, every day, for the first two years of the business, often at the expense of his personal and family life. With perseverance and business systems in place, he is now enjoying more time with his family and celebrating the milestones of his young daughter’s life.

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Loan Request Mistakes to Avoid

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Don't go the Wrong Way

The nonprofit small business lender LiftFund has helped thousands of small business owners navigate the funding landscape, and they’ve noticed some common pitfalls along the way. These are the three biggest mistakes LiftFund lenders have seen new business owners make – and how you can avoid them.

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SBA Loans Offer Low Interest Rates

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Popular pies from L’il Willie’s Shenanigans, the Red River ice cream and sweets shop owned by Kelley and Steve Cherry.

Kelley and Steve Cherry were so pleased with the experience of securing a loan to buy one commercial building in Red River that they want to buy another building the same way.

The couple worked with Century Bank to obtain a U.S. Small Business Administration 504 loan to purchase the building they previously leased for their 3-year-old ice cream and sweets shop, L’il Willie’s Shenanigans. They hope to use the same strategy to buy the building from which they’ve operated Shotgun Willie’s Café for the past decade.

The appeal of 504 loans is that interest rates are fixed at a significantly lower rate than traditional banks offer for commercial real estate loans, and borrowers get lots of help from lenders and the certified development companies that evaluate 504 loan packages for the SBA. The nonprofit Enchantment Land Certified Development Company played that role for the Cherrys.

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Historic Childcare Center to Double Capacity

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Christina Kent Early Childhood Center (CKECC), Albuquerque’s oldest continuously operating childcare center, is set to significantly expand its services through the purchase and renovation of a new building, thanks to a community-centered partnership with Homewise. The expansion will allow CKECC to double its capacity, offering critical early education to even more families in the Barelas neighborhood and across Albuquerque. 
 
Established in 1919, CKECC has served the Albuquerque community for over a century, providing high-quality childcare and early childhood education to low-income families. The center, accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), currently serves 62 children in three classrooms and is committed to ensuring accessible education through a sliding scale tuition model that considers both income and family size. Through its participation in the NM PreK program, CKECC also offers free tuition for 3- to 5-year-olds. 

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Line of Credit Boosts Security Entrepreneur

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Like many entrepreneurs, Adrian Chavez, Sr. did not intend to start a security business.

Chavez created Lobo Protective Services in 2017 after working as a security guard to earn income while studying political science at university and paying for his wedding. It was working that job that he was approached by someone who noticed his work ethic and integrity.

“This woman said, ‘I never met someone like you in the industry. If you open your own company, I will hire you for my next project,’” Chavez recounted.

Chavez wasn’t well versed in the security field at the time, but he would hear that there weren’t many reputable or state-licensed security companies.

After that conversation and a discussion with his wife, Chavez decided to take the entrepreneurial leap. “It’s not rocket science. It’s doing good, doing what you say, and saying what you mean,” Chavez said.

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