Student group Carolina Microfinance Initiative gets candy business off of the ground

From butter mints in Chapel Hill to banks in Guatemala, the Carolina Microfinance Initiative is promoting entrepreneurship one check at a time.

The club, founded in 2006, used to focus on international loans, but has started providing aid to local community members.

In 2010, a major project of the initiative was founding and funding a bank in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The bank provided loans to people who otherwise would not have been approved.

Sophomore Harry Edwards, the group’s co-chairman, said because of the bank’s success, it is slowly becoming more independent.

“Then kind of over the past few years we have been heavily involved with that in day-to-day operations but over the past year, they have employed local people to run the operation and do not need our help on a day-to-day basis,” he said.

The group has now moved its attention to the Chapel Hill community.

“This has freed us up now to start more locally and see if we can bring micro-finance to the Chapel Hill area,” Edwards said.

CMI is now looking for ways to assist new companies in the Chapel Hill area using the crowd-funding website Kiva.

“What we are trying to do now, and this is where being a Kiva trustee comes in, is finding very small, very local businesses that we think are doing great work and have great business plans and great capacity for expansion but are just being held back because they cannot access small amounts of capital,” Edwards said.

Heide Hooper is the group’s first client in Chapel Hill.

Hooper, an alumna of UNC, is looking to expand her company, Heide’s Gourmet Butter Mints.

“The mints are widely renowned as the best in the business,” she said.

Her mints are now sold in numerous stores and were also included in a gift basket at the Emmy Awards.

She is currently applying for a loan to cover the increase in demand for her product.

“These are opportunities that I just can’t miss out on, but I need capital to be able to fulfill these orders,” she said.

Edwards said Hooper must raise the money herself or she will not receive any aid.

“Once her loan goes live on (Kiva), she will have 45 days to raise the entirety of the $5,000 or else she won’t get anything,” he said.

Her friends, Ted Bartlett and Mary Jo Rhodes, attended a CMI meeting in her support.

“What you guys are doing for her is great, and myself and a lot of her friends really appreciate it,” Bartlett said.

Hooper said she is excited for the future of her company.

“Y’all are going to be so helpful. It has just been a great experience,” she said.

Edwards said CMI is looking for new volunteers.

“We are talking to second and third clients and we will definitely need more students to help.”

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