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Reversing Rural ' Economic Erosion'
Microloan Program Gives Budding Entrepreneurs A Chance And
A Peer Group
BY LYNN CARLSON
I want to start my own business."
For evety American dream -
come-true borne of those seven
hopeful words, there must have been
a thousand nightmares.
Lots of great cooks have failed
spectacularly in the restaurant busi
ness. A love of reading is not
enough to make you a successful
bookstore owner. And many a "peo
ple person" has nearly been turned
against the human race in the course
of trying to serve the public.
At least they got a chance to try.
The days of starting with noth
ing and lovingly building a small
hometown business or successful
cottage industry are virtually over.
It's not a coincidence that they end
ed about the same time it became
impossible to stroll into your local
bank and borrow a couple thousand
bucks on a handshake and your
good name. For many women and
minorities, that was never an option
anyway.
The N.C. Rural Economic De
velopment Center's "rqjcroloan"
program attempts to turn the clock
back to the days when capital was
easier to come by, and to make busi
ness lending more gender-neutral
and color-blind. Perhaps most im
portantly, it provides a support sys
tem for would-be entrepreneurs to
learn the nuts and bolts of business
operation before they have a chance
to risk anyone's venture capital.
Anctta Fulwood ? "Cookie" to
her friends and family ? is a scam
BCC PHOTO BY ANNE MARIE BELLAMY
MICROENTERPR1SE I/) AN GROUP members and program leaders are (from left, front row) Janice Simms, site director ; David
Pickett, interim enterprise agent; Sybil Simmons, group member; Velva Jenkins, Brunswick Community College business and industry di
rector; Mary l^egg, group member; (back row) Floyd Shorter, enterprise agent; Annetta Fullwood, group member; and Harold Reeder,
group member.
Still others, like Fullwood, par
ticipate m the program as just anoth
er logical step toward fulfilling a
single lifelong entrepreneurial
dream.
"I've always been determined to
start my own business," said Ful
lwood. who learned her craft under
the tutelage of her mother Bertha,
who had to sew to clothe 14 chil
dren.
Fullwood's stint with the Hess
department store chain in Hampton,
Va? taught her to sec the "pitfalls
and paperwork" that are an in
evitable part of any business experi
ence. She also learned to cautious
about pricing.
"In personal seamstress work, I
know you can never get out of it
quite what you put in, because of the
time you havc| involved," she said.
But she is committed to the belief
that she can make a decent living
doing what she loves and does best.
On a recent summer Friday, Ful
lwood was working in the tiny cin
derblock room off her mother's
house, furiously trying to make a
deadline on some bridesmaids' dres
ses. She was alone except for a
sewing machine, a portable radio
and several racks of garments in var
ious stages of completion. She had
been up until 1 the night before, and
was back at the machine by 6 a.m.
While she is not intimidated by
crunch deadlines and long hours, she
is aware of the danger of burn-out
from working at home and never re
ally beinu off dutv. "You have to re
stress, and a good one. Her past experience as a sales
manager for a major department store gave her more
than a chance to work with clothing. It taught her that
she had a lot to learn before she would be ready to em
hark on her quest to start her own personal seamstress
business ? perhaps culminating someday in her own line
of clothing.
With her work experience and degree in fashion
merchandising from Wilmington's Miller-Motte Fashion
Institute, Fullwood knew there would be more to it than
simply setting up shop in her mother's home near
Bolivia and waiting for the customers to beat a path to
her door.
She turned to Vclva Jenkins at the Brunswick
Community College Small Business Center for advice
on business strategy and possible funding sources.
Jenkins suggested Fullwood join the fledgling Bruns
wick County Microenterprise Loan Group.
Fullwood became the first member judged by her
own group to qualify for a loan ? SI, 500 which went to
ward a larger sewing machine, some lamps and a steam
er. If she repays the money within a year ? according to
a monthly amortization schedule at 16 percent interest ?
she'll be eligible for three more loans, graduated in max
imum amounts of S3, 000, 55,000 and S8.000.
Funded by the N.C. Rural Economic Development
Center in an attempt to reverse rural "economic ero
sion," the Microenterprise Loan Program prepares busi
ness owners to apply for loans in the traditional ways as
their businesses grow. The program is funded by the
N.C. General Assembly and private foundations.
Each of the five members of the Brunswick County
group seeks to start or expand a small business. The pro
gram offers them technical assistance as well as allow
ing them to help each other solve problems. The group
operates not unlike a traditional bank board, reviewing
each others' business plans and capital needs and decid
ing who is ready to be invested in.
Group members work together to help each other de
vise business plans, cash flow statements and cost-of
living budgets to determine whether the participants are
capable of paying back the microloans they seek. If any
group member defaults on a loan, everyone is penalized.
"You come before the group with your presentation.
and they operate basically as a loan commiucc," Ful
lwood explained. "The difference is that you're made to
feel from the beginning that they are family. If anything
goes wrong, we've all had a hand in it"
Enterprise agent David Pickett of Shallotte works
with 35 microloan groups members in Bladen, Colum
bus and Brunswick Counties. Participants have dreams
as diverse as owning a clock repair shop to a Christian
bookstore to a home grocery delivery service. Pickctt
works out the local program's administration site at
Southeastern Community College.
The local group receives additional help from
Brunswick Community College and meet regularly there
to hear guest speakers, consider applications and help
each other make plans and solve problems.
"These are mostly people who have no experience in
operating their own business or who have tried in the
past and made mistakes becausc they lacked an adequate
technical background," Pickctt explained. "Some are
there knowing that they aren't ready to jump into busi
ness; they're just there to learn about it."
ally discipline yourself and be good with lime manage
ment. You have to get up every day and get dressed just
like you were going out to work. Sometimes you have to
avoid the tendency to work until 4 in the morning and
start back at 6 or 7.
But working at home is what Cookie Fullwood
wants. "It's easy for my customers to get up with me,
even outside of traditional business hours. It's safer for
me than keeping the kind of hours I do now if I were in
a storefront in downtown Wilmington. There is much
less overhead here. And 1 can rely on my mother to help
me if I need it to make a deadline."
Fullwood's first loan payment was due last month.
She'll have a year to pay it back, and in six months can
apply for a second phase loan. If she gets it, she may use
it to expand into a larger room in her home.
"If it hadn't been for the Microenterprise Loan
Group, I'd have been turned down Hat trying to borrow
the money I needed to buy the equipment I needed. To
banks, that's usually too small an amount of money to
even fool with, but it's just what 1 needed."
NOW ACCEPTING
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