My name is Larry. I came into this country as a refugee from my home country of Liberian in 2003, landing in Atlanta, Georgia. I went to school in Atlanta, taking Business Management / Healthcare Administration classes. After, I moved to Boston and started selling Avon products. Boston was very expensive, so I decided to relocate to South Carolina to go back to school and I attended Strayer University to get my business degree. But, things were not good for me and my family, so I decided to move to Iowa in 2013 and started an online African Clothing business. The demand was growing, so I decided to open my own African store in late June of 2020. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, business was quite slow, but I continued to pay for the rent of my store. As I type this, my shop is fully open, selling African Clothing and African Goods. By God’s Grace and with a bit of financial help, I am trying to stock my store and open another store back home in Liberia to help empower the students who are in need of something to do.
Business Description
We’re Hela Designer, and we’re a local African Market located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We believe in friendly service and offer international foods, African products, and clothing. We started this business at home with just African clothing, and the demand for these products grew until we opened our own store. We’re looking forward to growing our business and continuing to serve Cedar Rapids and the surrounding communities. We’re also looking forward to opening other shops in and around Iowa, and someday a space back home in Liberia.
What is the Purpose of This Loan?
We will use this loan mainly for inventory purposes in helping us to buy more goods for our store. The virus made it difficult for our business to boom, and we have to continue paying our rent and other bills for the store. With the help of this loan, we will be able to buy more goods and catch up on stocking the store with new inventory.