June 2020
Dear Friends:

In an effort to continue to support small businesses and nonprofits that have suffered due to the Covid-19 virus, LISC San Diego is reaching out with a helping hand.

We are now accepting applications for the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) specifically from minority- and women-owned business as well as veteran-owned businesses and nonprofits in San Diego County that have not yet received funding from PPP.

To apply, please complete this  survey.

We wish you the blessings of safety, health and peace during this crisis.

Sincerely,
Ricardo Flores
Executive Director
Updates
Economic Development: #INCityHeights
LISC San Diego has provided HUD Section 4 funding to Media Arts Center to document and share stories of City Height's small businesses and their resiliency through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Check out the story of Cafeina Cafe and owner Andrew Benavides who is collaborating with  City Heights Business Association  to provide essential medical workers with coffee and pan dulce.

We encourage you to check out the #INCityHeights Facebook page, and share these stories with your colleagues, partners, and friends.
LISC Loans
Project: Nook East Village

Description : Mixed-income micro apartments (91 units)

LISC San Diego loan amount:
$3,000,000

Completion: 2016
News from National
LISC's Annual Report
" If there’s anything the outset of 2020 has taught us, it’s that America needs strong communities and strong organizations to flourish and progress , and to weather the profound challenges that life serves up—which is exactly where we find ourselves now, in the midst of the global Covid-19 crisis.

We are grateful to report that 2019 was an extraordinary year for LISC’s work supporting people and places to achieve stability and resiliency—the very attributes everyone, and every community, requires.  " Maurice A. Jones
LISC + Truist Foundation
On May 20 , LISC announced an exciting partnership with  Truist  Foundation to fuel recovery in rural and urban communities.

The partnership will expand LISC's capacity to provide emergency relief grants and technical assistance for rural small businesses and nonprofits disproportionately affected by Covid-19.

Together, LISC and Truist will provide the financial resources, expertise and broadband access that small businesses, nonprofits and families need to not only survive but to chart a course to a brighter future.
Another $2.5 Million Deployed to Buoy Small Businesses in Our Communities
Last week, LISC and Verizon announced the second of three rounds of grants.

More than 200 small businesses , the majority owned by minority, women and veteran entrepreneurs, received grants of up to $10,000 this week to help them stay afloat during the Covid-19 crisis.

The grants are part of a $7.5 million collaboration with Verizon to support enterprises in under-invested communities across rural and urban America.
LISC AmeriCorps
AmeriCorps Members of the Month
A Few Minutes with...
Beryl Forman
Marketing and Mobility Coordinator
El Cajon Boulevard Business Improvement Assocation

With her task of revitalizing six culturally-mixed neighborhoods, Beryl Forman brings energy and passion to the El Cajon Boulevard Improvement Association, which binds together the thoroughfare best known as “The Boulevard.”

As the jack-of-all-trades marketing and mobility director, Beryl knows that diversity of cultures gives The Boulevard its character as well as its challenges, with dozens of languages spoken by residents.

The area includes diasporas of immigrants and refugees, most from African nations, as well as a hub of Vietnamese businesses in San Diego’s Little Saigon District.

Beryl has been serving The Boulevard for 13 years since arriving in San Diego 15 years ago from her native New Jersey, with stops in Indiana, Los Angeles and Hawaii, where she gained the gift for properly slicing mangoes.

She feels a “heartfelt connection” to the organizational partners and businesses in her domains of University Heights, North Park, City Heights, Normal Heights, Kensington, and Talmadge.

Forman, who holds a degree from UC San Diego in urban planning, has been an active 10-year member of the LISC San Diego Collaborative, leading initiatives around place-making, a collaborative strategy to enhance public spaces.

Among those spaces are Fair@44 outdoor market and Take Back the Alley.