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By Sister Marilín Llanes, OP Portfolio Manager of Community Impact Investments, Portfolio Advisory Board
Imagine this situation: Mariela, 41, a Latina with limited resources living with an adult child scrambling to pay legal expenses for a divorce. Where will she go for help to get a small consumer loan in the big metro city of Miami, Florida? During this difficult time for Mariela, she turned to Capital Good Fund for a $3,500 Impact PLUS Fund instead of going with payday lenders that take advantage of people in such dire situations.
“Capital Good Fund made me feel supported, empowered, and confident,” she said. “Capital Good Fund offered options and solutions instead of creating problems. The tools are there. There are people willing to help you.”
The Adrian Dominican Sisters Portfolio Advisory Board (PAB) welcomed in March 2023 Capital Good Fund as new partner borrower. Andy Posner, Founder and CEO launched the nonprofit certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) in 2009 with a mission to create pathways out of poverty and advance a green economy through inclusive financial services. It grants loans nationally – in Rhode Island, Florida, Massachusetts, Delaware, Illinois, Texas, Colorado, New Jersey, and Connecticut – and is incorporated in Providence, Rhode Island.
The PAB is especially pleased to partner with Capital Good for its commitment to address racial equity and its recognition that racism, discrimination, poverty, and financial exclusion are all linked.
Capital Good Fund’s mission is well aligned with the Congregation’s 2022 Enactment on Diversity, which calls the Adrian Dominican Sisters to “build the beloved community in which everyone is cared for, absent of poverty, hunger and hate.”
Capital Good engages daily with underserved families and provides tools for savings, building credit, investing in themselves, and avoiding high-interest debt to be able to reach their goals.
All loans are offered through a financial technology (fintech) platform. Fintech transactions are efficient, reliable, and easily accessible to the client who is often living with time and energy constraints, and limited resources. The array of products Capital Good offers range from car loans, immigration loans to cover cost like green card acquisition and citizenship; consumer loans, weatherization loans to make homes more efficient and emergency loans for unexpected expenses like in Mariela’s story.
Ana came to the United States with a dream: to start her own business, buy a house, and create a better life for her children. But she had a problem: she needed $5,000 to get her work permit. That's where Good Fund came in. By providing the loan, Capital Good enabled Ana to get a work permit and launch her business. This opportunity for Ana boosted her credit score, allowing her eventually to buy her own home for her husband and two children. Watch Ana tell her story here.
Mariela and Ana are two of the thousands of individuals and families serviced by the Capital Good Fund team.
Learn more about Capital Good Fund on https://capitalgoodfund.org/en/
May 11, 2023, Adrian, Michigan – The Adrian Dominican Sisters took a step closer to their goal of reducing the carbon footprint of the Motherhouse Campus May 5, 2023, with a dedication and blessing of a 900-kilowatt solar array.
The solar array is composed of two sections: a set of 276 solar panels on top of a car port in the Regina parking lot, visible from Siena Heights Drive, and a 1,846-panel solar array on 2.5 acres of the north field behind Weber Retreat and Conference Center. The two sites combined are expected to produce 1.1 kilowatt hours of energy each year – about a quarter of the Motherhouse Campus’s annual consumption.
Sister Patricia Siemen, OP, right, introduces the members of the 2016-2022 General Council who served with her, from left, Sisters Patricia Harvat, OP, Frances Nadolny, OP, Mary Margaret Pachucki, OP, and Elise D. García, OP, now Prioress.
Sister Elise D. García, OP, Prioress of the Congregation, presided over the dedication, welcoming Sisters, Associates, Co-workers, and guests. She introduced those who had played major roles in the solar array project: Sister Patricia Siemen, OP, past Prioress, and other members of the 2016-2022 General Council; the members of the 2022-2028 General Council; Joel Henricks, Director of Facilities and Grounds; and Brad McCullar and Ray Casey, of the Technology Office. In turn, Joel introduced representatives of organizations that had partnered with the Congregation on the solar array project: Scott Hill of Krieghoff-Lenawee, a construction firm that has worked on many construction projects for the Congregation; Mike Deaton, President of Laibe Electric; and David Patterson of Consumers Energy.
Sister Patricia cited the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ 2016 General Chapter Enactment on Sustainability as the motivation for investing in the solar array. “We committed ourselves to recognizing the violence against Earth community that places our common home in dire jeopardy and intensifies the suffering of people on the margins, future generations, and all of creation,” she said. “These solar panels … are a concrete outcome of that commitment made in 2016.”
Sister Patricia noted that the Congregation will benefit from “being able to draw upon the actual energy that comes from this solar array.” But above all, she said, “we really want to make this contribution so that we ourselves as a community will lighten our own carbon footprint, and we know day by day climate disruption is getting more and more massive and causing more and more suffering.”
Sisters Elise and Patricia blessed the solar array at the Regina parking lot, an image of the solar array in the north field, the electrical gear, and the crowd. Together, they pushed the button that started the power to the array.
The dedication ceremony was the culmination of a long planning process, beginning in 2016-2017 under Sister Patricia, and three years of work on the project, beginning in 2020. “We’ve been talking about solar power [and other] renewable energy sources on campus for several years, and it finally came to fruition,” Joel said. While the Congregation’s solar array is small compared to others found throughout Michigan and across the United States, its contribution is still significant. “That small array that we have produces enough energy to power about 105 homes in an entire year,” he said. “That’s impressive.”
Learn more about the solar array here.