Tag Archives: The Loan Fund

The Loan Fund Helps Fund Building Purchase

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Brandy Castillo, MS, MSW, LCSW-S, created her behavioral health company in 2013 when she was starting a family and looking for a way to build a home-based practice. Clients were seen at her home on an old farm just outside of the City of Belen in Valencia County, New Mexico.

In 2018, the business name was officially changed to Hearth & Soul of New Mexico when Brandy’s husband Ignacio became co-owner and billing manager after retiring from the New Mexico Department of Corrections.

The business, which is rooted in compassion, expanded to offer services in Mesilla and Albuquerque. Heart & Soul aims to foster a supportive environment that encourages growth, self-discovery, and the realization of one’s fullest potential. Its 35 healthcare providers and staff specialize in a wide range of behavioral health services, including therapy and psychiatry to treat depression, anxiety, substance use, trauma, and more. It does this through individual and group therapy, psychiatry, and enhanced case management.

In January 2024, Brandy went to The Loan Fund for financial help to purchase a building in downtown Belen, where she could serve more clients from a central location.

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Loan Fund Client Wins SBA Statewide Award

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Silvia Terrazas, owner of Paleteria La Reyna Michoacana, was named the New Mexico SBA’s 2024 New Mexico Women-Owned Small Business of the Year. Terrazas’s Las Cruces business makes Michoacana-style ice cream and popsicles, known as paletas, and sells them along with other items such as pinatas, candy, and Mexican party favors. A loan from the nonprofit lender The Loan Fund enabled Terrazas to construct and occupy a new building when she was ready to expand.

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Entrepreneur Responds to Market Needs

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When Las Cruces resident Silvia Terrazas looked for videos to rent in Spanish, she found none so she created a store to fill that need. In 2000, she obtained financing to open Video Exitos, where she placed a freezer filled with ice cream and the Mexican-style popsicles known as paletas. 

Terrazas noticed the ice cream treats were popular and she decided to learn how to make her own Michoacan-style ice cream and paletas, venturing to the Mexican state of Michoacan to attend an ice cream-making course. She learned how to incorporate the state’s fresh fruit into popsicles and ice cream.

In 2005, Terrazas was ready to expand her business. She went to the nonprofit lender, The Loan Fund, for a loan to construct a building for her new ice cream and treat shop, Paleteria La Reyna Michoacana where she could also sell pinatas, candy, and other Mexican specialty items.

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The Loan Fund Helps Mycologist Cultivate a Business

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Estevan Hernandez started growing mushrooms in his garage about 12 years ago while still in high school. It was an interest he developed after adopting a vegan diet.

Years later, after embarking on a career in electrical engineering, Hernandez decided to focus on his mushroom passion. He left his job, studied mycology under a master grower to become a Senior Mycologist, and opened an urban farm. He also turned to The Loan Fund, a nonprofit lender, for funds to help him start New Mexico Fungi, his Albuquerque business.

“I would probably still be working out of my garage, and I certainly wouldn’t be operating on the scale I am now,” said Hernandez.

New Mexico Fungi grows about a dozen mushroom species year-round using temperature-controlled incubators and rotating crops to produce Enoki, Chestnut, Lion’s Mane, Reishi, Shiitake, Shimeji, Turkey Tail, and several oyster varieties including black pearl, blue, golden, and pink. Harvesting about 140 pounds each week, the company meets the needs of customers searching for fresh produce and medicinal fungi, as well as commercial customers such as Vernon’s Speakeasy and Los Poblanos.

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Spanish is Natural for this Small Business Advisor

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Spanish has historically been the language of choice for many multi-generational New Mexico families. And with Latin American immigration contributing to the number of small-business startups in New Mexico, it’s no surprise that many entrepreneurs can benefit from resources and assistance delivered in their first and natural language.

Enter Juan Albert, a Technical Assistance Advisor for the nonprofit lender The Loan Fund. Born in Cuba to a family from Spain, Albert uses his Spanish language skills to help deliver loans and lines of credit to small businesses and nonprofit organizations in the southern part of New Mexico. And then he offers technical support – in Spanish or English – to ensure those businesses thrive.

Albert’s 40-year career has taken him to 35 countries throughout Latin America, Europe, and Asia. After a stint at the U.S. Government Accountability Office in Washington DC, Albert was transferred to Panama to manage projects and personnel throughout Latin America. He later joined the firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a manager serving in Honduras with responsibilities overseeing projects and staff in five Central American countries. During his 10 years in Latin America, Albert worked primarily on programs related to economic and development assistance. 

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Technical Assistance Advisors Offer More Than a Loan

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Joaquin Amador, Technical Assistance Advisor at The Loan Fund

Matilda Scheurer purchased Teresa’s Tamales in January of 2021, and she did it with help from The Loan Fund, a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). In addition to obtaining a loan to purchase the long-time Cleveland, New Mexico restaurant, Scheurer got access to a technical advisor she can call when she needs business advice, feedback, or an answer to a question.

Joaquin Amador is The Loan Fund’s Technical Assistance Advisor in the northern part of the state*. Based in Santa Fe, Amador helps provide loans and lines of credit to small businesses and nonprofits and then offers technical support to ensure those businesses thrive.

Amador is well-positioned to offer assistance. With more than 20 years of management and marketing experience ranging from tech startup to multibillion-dollar global businesses, he is equipped to offer advice on strategic issues like business improvements, as well tactical challenges such as online marketing and search engine optimization. Two advanced degrees – an MBA from the University of New Mexico and a Master of Science from the University of Chicago – give Amador a wide range of business knowledge he can share with The Loan Fund’s clients.

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Loan Gives New Life to Las Cruces Cafe

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Melissa & Jaime Salazar

Melissa Salazar was a manager at a Las Cruces McDonald’s when she and her father, Jaime Salazar, an executive chef at the Holiday Inn, took over La Nueva Casita Café, a Mexican restaurant in the Historic Mesquite District in 2005.

“My brother was driving through the neighborhood and saw the building was for rent. My dad grew up two blocks from here,” said Melissa, describing downtown Las Cruces and the original township. “We applied to be occupants and the owner said there were several people who inquired about it but he thought that my dad would be the right one to carry on what his mother started.”

La Nueva Casita was created in 1957 along the Camino Real, the same route that brought conquistadors from Mexico City to Santa Fe. Historians note that the path was also likely used by Indigenous people for travel years prior. Many who remain in the neighborhood are descendants of the original settlers who created Las Cruces, with some of the homes dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s.

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Nonprofit Offers More Than Small Business Loans

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Almost a decade after building their facility with help from The Loan Fund, Pet Planet continues to provide top-quality service to Las Cruces pet owners.

By the time a client gets a loan from The Loan Fund, she’s in a committed partnership with the nonprofit lender. That’s because The Loan Fund offers business development consulting to all potential clients — not just those who receive loans.

The Loan Fund loan officers provide “pre-loan consulting” the moment they receive an inbound call or greet an office visitor.  And consulting continues after the client walks out the door — either to get more prepared or to start putting the loan money to work building a business, creating jobs and improving communities. The Loan Fund is fully invested with the people whose business startup and expansion plans it helps finance —even with those who aren’t ready for a loan.

To fulfill its mission “to provide loans and assistance to improve the economic and social conditions of New Mexicans,” The Loan Fund offers the kind of advice and support that help businesses grow and reach sustainability.

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Food Trucks: New Path to Entrepreneurship

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Kayla Vallejos has been cooking since she was 13 so it was only a matter of time before she would own a food operation.

Vallejos, the proud owner of Albuquerque-based Taste of Love food truck that launched in the spring of 2021, got her start working at Burger King and then moved on to waitressing and bartending. Along the way, her dream was to work in a kitchen, but she lacked the formal experience necessary to be hired by a restaurant. That was until the owners of a restaurant in her home state of New Jersey allowed her to cook for their patrons.

“A lot of places wouldn’t hire me because I was a woman and I didn’t have a formal background in cooking,” Vallejos said. The restaurant is “where I learned mostly everything, especially making homemade stuff.”

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The Loan Fund Releases Its 2020 Impact Report

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The Loan Fund, an award-winning nonprofit organization that provides loans and consulting to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofit organizations across New Mexico, said today it provided funding for 121 new loans in 2020. Minorities and women-owned businesses made up the overwhelming majority of the year’s loans, which created 189 new jobs and preserved 589 existing jobs in the state.

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