Meet a few of Working Solutions’ borrowers!
Entrepreneur Spotlight: Bernal Cutlery
Bernal Cutlery is a retail cutlery and knife sharpening business, on Cortland Avenue in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco. The business began in 2005 as a home-based sharpening service that catered to local chefs. Owner Josh Donald uses the Japanese whetstone technique when sharpening which keeps knives strong without wearing down the metal. Bernal Cutlery also has a wide variety of one-of-a-kind and vintage knives from all around the world. Josh came to Working Solutions and received a microloan through Working Solutions to expand his retail space and hire an additional employee for knife sharpening. He returned and received a second microloan for continued expansion the following year.
“Working Solutions has provided invaluable help to my small San Francisco business Bernal Cutlery both with a badly needed loan and by providing excellent support in the application process and with follow up help. Working Solutions is truly oxygen for small business.”
For more information about Bernal Cutlery, visit www.bernalcutlery.com.
_________________________________________________________________
About Working Solutions: Working Solutions is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) dedicated to providing entrepreneurs with the access to capital and resources they need to start or grow a business. This organization supports microenterprise growth as a strategy to strengthen the San Francisco Bay Area economy by providing borrowers with microloans from $5,000 to $50,000 in combination with five years of business coaching, advising, mentoring and educations. Working Solutions’ has made more than $2.9 million in microloans with a 97% repayment rate. Working Solutions borrowers have created more than 300 local jobs and have annual combined revenues of $9 million. For more information, please visit www.tmcworkingsolutions.org.