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April 2022

Love0
By Borrower Stories, Migration V2

How Toni Hopkins Embraced Her Entrepreneurial Side To Open Cool J’s Apparel During The Pandemic

In the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, Toni Hopkins and her husband talked about moving from their home in Springfield, Illinois to North Carolina to pursue what she describes as “something different.” They’d even gone as far as to meet with a real estate agent to explore selling their house. Ultimately, the couple abandoned their plans to pursue a fresh start at the onset of the pandemic. However, Toni’s desire for “something different” persisted. That’s when she began to listen to the entrepreneurial voice in her head that had spent the past three years telling her to start her own business.

Toni Hopkins, Founder of Cool J’s Apparel.

For Toni, the idea of opening her own business was something of a fantasy. After more than 18 years working in accounting and finance, she was tired of the monotony. Over her career, she’d heard people — coworkers, friends, family members — vocalize wanting to do something different with their lives but never acting on those wants. Toni’s problem was that she knew she wanted to start a business, but she didn’t know what kind of business she wanted to start. She’d even stumbled across a vacant commercial space near her home in Springfield that she determined would be perfect for her nameless, yet-to-be-created future store.

During the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, when stay-at-home mandates went into effect and Toni began to work from home, something changed inside of her. Not only did she and her husband decide to stay planted in Springfield, but that’s when she decided that she was going to shift from talking about opening her own business to actually making it happen. “The pandemic hit, and I said ‘okay, this is the time for me to actually do this,’” she said. “Like everybody else, I started working from home, and I realized that I could be doing something else with my time that I wanted to do instead of pushing numbers.”

Fortunately, Toni was surrounded by a supportive husband, daughter, and son who encouraged her to embrace her entrepreneurial side. She set her fears aside and began to look for the right business opportunities in her community. It didn’t take her long to connect the dots between one of her passions — fashion — and the fact that there weren’t many black-owned clothing boutiques in town that sold trendy yet affordable clothes and accessories. Toni had found her business idea: Cool J’s Apparel. Amazingly, the “perfect” commercial space that she’d seen from her car window a year earlier and fallen in love with was still available. Even more amazing was the fact that Toni was able to work with the landlord to sign a lease.

Falling Into Place

According to Toni, every aspect of her business seemed to effortlessly fall into place. Through her research, she’d learned that women were continuing to purchase clothing during the pandemic and that boutiques like the one she wanted to open continued to be profitable amidst the wide-scale economic uncertainty. That helped to shape the business plan that Toni wrote and carried with her to her local bank to apply for a small business loan. Although the banker told Toni that he couldn’t help her because the loan request wasn’t big enough, he told her to reach out to Justine PETERSEN, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that offers a variety of financial tools and service to help low- and moderate-income individuals and families achieve their personal financial goals. CNote partners with CDFIs like Justine PETERSEN in communities across the country, funding loans and empowering local entrepreneurs like Toni through CNote’s Flagship and Wisdom Funds.

Toni reached out to the CDFI in November 2020, and she quickly connected with Aida Richardson, Justine PETERSEN’s chief lending officer. “Aida was so helpful from the very beginning,” Toni said. “She just knew so much, which was the biggest help. This was my first time opening a business, but she’d done this hundreds of times, so Aida just made it so easy. She answered all of my questions and emails and didn’t hesitate to always point me in the right direction.”

With micro-enterprise lending from Justine PETERSEN, Toni was able to do everything she needed to open Cool J’s Apparel on May 28, 2021. According to her, the loan money from the CDFI helped her with every aspect of her business, from paying rent to completing renovations and from purchasing inventory to buying the iPad that she uses to complete sales. Additionally, Toni says that the CDFI helped her to make her business “become legit and successful,” meaning she was able to leverage those loan dollars to invest in marketing, advertising, and signage. Most importantly, even though Toni received her small business loan roughly 12 months ago, Aida and her colleagues at Justine PETERSEN continue to tell Toni that they’re always available whenever she needs anything, whether that’s a quick question that can be answered over the phone or ongoing technical assistance to help take her business to the next level. 

Unsurprisingly, Toni’s positive experience with Justine PETERSEN is largely why she describes opening Cool J’s Apparel as “so easy.” In the process, she’s inadvertently become one of the CDFI’s biggest cheerleaders. “I’ve been telling everybody about them,” she said, laughing. “They’ll let you know right away if they can help you or not, and if they can’t, then they’ll put you on the right path and they’ll give you the steps to help you. It’s a relationship that I’m really appreciative of, even today.”

‘I Love Doing What I’m Doing’

Although the COVID-19 pandemic couldn’t deter Toni from opening Cool J’s Apparel in May 2021, it did limit her ability to have a grand opening celebration — something she’s considering remedying in the coming weeks. That doesn’t mean that the women’s clothing store where “cute meets comfortable” has struggled to find its footing in Springfield. Business is going well, and Toni says the store enjoys support from both local customers and shoppers who drive down from Chicago. The broad geographic interest in Cool J’s Apparel stems from the fact that Toni carries stylish yet affordable clothes and accessories for all ages. “My customers are Black and white, young and old, and just really diverse,” she said. “I’m not joking. It’s craziness. I don’t know how people target one specific group, because I have such a big range of customers here.”

Cool J’s Apparel even attracts the occasional male customer, which has prompted Toni to consider incorporating a menswear section into her store — or perhaps into a larger location. In the nearterm, Toni would like to hire some help. Currently, Toni operates the store while she continues to work her part-time, remote nonprofit job, and although she appreciates the help she gets from her family, including her niece, she wants to either hire two part-time employees or one full-time staff member as soon as she’s able to. Additionally, Toni is interested in deepening her small business’ connection to the surrounding community, such as sponsoring events where all proceeds go to donating backpacks to the local school.

Even though Toni has the occasional quiet day at Cool J’s Apparel, she’s pleased knowing that when customers do come into her boutique, they tend to walk out with a bag of new clothes. “People that have never been my customers before, they come in and they find something that appeals to them,” Toni said. “I love that. Even on slow days, I still love being here and doing what I’m doing.”

Learn More

  • Cool J’s Apparel
  • Justine PETERSEN is a CDFI that connects institutional resources with the needs of low-to-moderate-income individuals and families in Missouri, helping them to build assets and create enduring community change.
  • CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like Justine PETERSEN, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.
Love0
By Borrower Stories, Low Income Designated Credit Union, Migration V1

How Project Fighting Chance Is Going Beyond The Boxing Ring To Build Trauma Resiliency In San Bernardino’s Youth

When Terry Boykins was first approached to serve on the board of directors for a nonprofit called Project Fighting Chance, the social entrepreneur politely said “thanks, but no thanks.” It wasn’t because Terry wasn’t aligned with Project Fighting Chance’s mission to function as a viable safe space and trauma resilience support system for youth in San Bernardino, California. Terry’s own work was similarly rooted in community engagement; however, his background was admittedly in the corporate world, and Terry was hesitant to get involved with a nonprofit. 

Terry Boykins

A few years later, in 2016, Terry got his next offer to consider joining Project Fighting Chance’s board, just months after a terrorist attack left the community — and the country — in shock. This time, Terry visited the organization, he spoke with current board members, and, most importantly, he saw the nonprofit’s potential. Terry joined the board, and a year later, he stepped in as the organization’s interim executive director. In July 2020, he dropped the “interim” label and became the nonprofit’s full-time executive director.

One of the reasons that Project Fighting Chance was established in 1999 was to give youth a safe place to go after school. According to Terry, the hours between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. are the most deadly for young people, especially in San Bernardino, the second-most dangerous city in California. That’s why the nonprofit opened its doors: to create a place for students to escape the pervasive poverty, food insecurity, prostitution, drugs, violence, robberies, car jackings, and home invasions around them. “When you talk about PTSD in the hood, it’s here,” Terry said. “These students are trying to navigate an environment where they’re confronted by violence and destruction on a daily basis, so we created a space for them to get away from that, where they can focus on their academic well-being, their emotional well-being, and getting an afternoon meal five days a week.”Since its inception, Project Fighting Chance has built itself a championship reputation within the national amateur boxing community. For example, in 2018, PBS released a docu-series following three of the nonprofit’s top boxers. However, when Terry came onboard, he set out to expand the organization’s programmatic offerings beyond boxing. “The boxing program was already a place where kids wanted to go,” he said, “but I’d been focusing on the obstacles that youth were confronted years down the road. I asked ‘what exactly can be done that will help these young people apply the techniques of boxing as they relate to overcoming issues or struggles or problems to get somewhere else in life?’ That’s when we began to have a different dialogue.”

Through that “different dialogue,” Terry and his colleagues at Project Fighting Chance have put together a dizzying assortment of programmatic offerings for youth between the ages of eight and 18 from San Bernardino and the surrounding communities. While boxing and workouts are still an integral part of Project Fighting Chance, the nonprofit has expanded to offer additional after-school enrichment programs like chess, art classes, horticulture, tutoring, and spoken word. There’s also a mental-health tranquility garden, where students can sit outside and eat lunch, meet with a counselor, or learn about nutrition. Additionally, the San Bernardino City Unified School District helped the nonprofit secure 40 guitars — a mix of acoustic and electric — for its Guitars Not Guns program. “We have a trauma-informed staff, so we understand who’s coming in the door,” Terry said. “It’s a very interesting time here when the guitar instructor and the students are able to come together through music to deal with some social-emotional dynamics that happened in their day.”

Going Toe-to-Toe With A Global Pandemic

Every Monday through Friday, Project Fighting Chance welcomes roughly 120 students through its doors, and in its 22-year existence, it has trained and mentored over 6,000 youth, free of charge. However, the nonprofit’s ability to fulfill its mission was thrown into question at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. With both uncertainty around the virus’ transmission and state-mandated stay-at-home orders, Project Fighting Chance had to close its doors to the youth who needed it most. To make matters worse, much of the grant money that Project Fighting Chance relied on was retracted, which meant that the nonprofit was in immediate need from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to keep afloat. 

Fortunately, a pastor from a nearby church referred Terry and his team to Self-Help Federal Credit Union. Self-Help is a low-income designated credit union that was chartered in 2008 to build a network of branches that serve working families and underserved communities. It currently has more than 78,000 customers across 19 branches in California, 10 branches in Illinois, and one branch in Wisconsin, and it has over $1.2 billion in assets. Like many credit unions in the U.S., Self-Help rose to the challenges presented by PPP loan issuance and forgiveness and acted as an economic shock absorber for the economy. CNote partners with low-income designated credit unions like Self-Help across the country through its Impact Cash Solution. 

Thanks to Self-Help, Project Fighting Chance applied for and received two rounds of PPP loans, which meant that the nonprofit did not have to lay off any of its six employees. The PPP funding also kept fuel in Project Fighting Chance’s tanks — literally. For the first 18 months of the pandemic, the nonprofit used its two vans to deliver 170 meals every day to youth around San Bernardino, ensuring that those experiencing food and transportation insecurity at home could still be served. “The PPP funding proved critical, because it allowed us to repurpose the organization to support young people and their parents in the community,” Terry said. “We were the place they could count on every day, and we basically got those funds and invested them into the community to make sure that we could stay available to these youth.”

Life Outside of the Boxing Ring

Although Project Fighting Chance had to limit its daily capacity to 15 students at the beginning of the pandemic, today, Terry and his team are back to serving over 100 youth a day. Despite the extended time away from face-to-face interactions, programmatically, Project Fighting Chance didn’t miss a beat during the pandemic. In September 2021, for example, the nonprofit kicked off a program called Civil Liberties for Boys of Color, where students got to speak with law enforcement officials — police officers, probationary staff, employees from the district attorney’s office — for 90 minutes every Friday. “These were real conversations,” said Terry. “These kids were scared of the police and not knowing if they’re going to make it back home today. So these folks came in and talked about the law, about behavior, and they talked to these young boys about having a voice for their concerns about living in their communities.”

To say that Project Fighting Chance has become much more than a place for youth to learn about boxing is an understatement. Today, youth are exposed to programs related to nutrition, mental health, sex trafficking, partner violence, civic engagement, and career development. Whether or not a student walks through the nonprofit’s doors wanting to be the next Muhammad Ali or the next Jimi Hendrix, they’re encouraged to train in the boxing gym, visit the tranquility garden, talk about mental wellness, and explore every aspect of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math). 

Why? According to Terry, it’s not only about reducing childhood violence, trauma, and food insecurity, it’s about preparing these youth to be productive members of society. That means developing the coping skills to thrive in the labor force and the civic engagement skills to become informed voters and taxpayers. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that Terry’s most exciting day as executive director of the nonprofit was when he and the youth at Project Fighting Chance were invited to attend a San Bernardino City Council meeting to learn about how local government works. The organization filled every seat in the house, and, as Terry put it, the students got “a lesson outside of the boxing ring that was priceless.

Whether it’s local council members, California state assembly members, school district administrators, teachers, mentors, counselors, therapists, coaches, parents, or credit unions like Self-Help, Terry is quick to acknowledge the broad community support and partnerships that Project Fighting Chance not only enjoys, but relies upon to be successful. “We are not where we are because we’re doing great things,” Terry said. “We are where we are because there are some great people helping us do some very good things after school in this community.” 

Learn More

  • Project Fighting Chance‘s Mission is “to function as a viable safe space and trauma resilience support system for youth and young adults at-progress while assisting them to become positive contributing members of the community.”
  • Self-Help Federal Credit Union was chartered in 2008 to build a network of branches that serves working families and underserved communities. Serving more than 78,000 members, Self-Help Federal is one of the fastest-growing low-income designated credit unions in the country. 
  • CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great Credit Unions like Self-Help, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.