Born and raised on the Navajo reservation, where fry bread is a cultural staple for Navajo families, Hope has been in business for a very long time, doing catering and pop ups for about 10 years now.

Jennifer Dokes, for LISC Phoenix

Confidence, that empowering feeling of knowing, isn’t something you can take to the bank, but it certainly pays dividends for entrepreneurs pursuing their dreams and planning for growth. Hope Peshlakai knows her way around a kitchen. Give her a space to work her Navajo frybread magic and she is, as she says, “good to go.”

Maria Vega started off selling her Mexican sushi and snacks out of her home, and by posting on Facebook and going where there was an opportunity to sell in different locations throughout the valley.

For ten years Pescaderia has been a wholesaler of imported seafood to 17 local restaurants and two hotels.

For eight years Eva Rangel with Yerberia Sagitario, has provided the community with natural products; we carry encapsulated herbs and plants, also known as alternative medicine or natural medicine.

Haji Baba Middle Eastern food restaurant and grocery store has been in Tempe, Arizona for almost 35 years.

LISC was pleased to be selected as a recipient of the Kroger Co. Foundation’s inaugural Racial Equity Build It Together grant. In 2021, LISC deployed funding to six on-the-ground organizations to address racial wealth, health and opportunity gaps in local food systems including Cihuapactli Collective and RAIL CDC. We're grateful that this grant gave our partners the flexibility to prioritize their most pressing needs and afforded them elbow room to put their expertise into action.

Jennifer Dokes, for LISC Phoenix

It stank to high heaven. The purpose-driven Social Spin laundromat that quickly became a community hub in a central Phoenix neighborhood was displaced after three years in a lease situation that founder Christy Moore described as “extremely traumatic.” “We knew that we didn’t want to ever go through that experience again,” Moore said.

By Bill Taft

Since the onset of the pandemic, LISC has equipped 16,000 small business owners with relief and resilience grants. But to foster opportunity and long-term resiliency for all entrepreneurs who confront entrenched inequities, including people of color, women, immigrants and refugees, and people with lower incomes and wealth, we need a robust universe of small business “ecosystems”: the network of capital, services, and supports that every enterprise needs to get on its feet and grow.