By Betsy Ramser Jaime
‘My name is Daughty and I run a Bakery business, I have been a Zidisha member for a while now, my first loan was 9,000 and my last loan was over 100,000, that’s how much I have grown in Zidisha, am still looking forward to growing even more.’
Starting with Zidisha in 2015, Daughty has now raised a total of 11 Zidisha funded loans. From her first loan of $100, she is now raising loan amounts of $1,000 and $2,000 USD.
One of her first loans went towards fabricating an extractor hood as she shared, ‘when I moved in my current establishment in January 2015 I did not fabricate the extractor hood since I did not have sufficient funds, now it has started to discolor the wall and it also makes the room smoky. It is also not hygienic for my staff to work in an environment that is smoky, kindly assist me to deal with this situation. I look forward to a positive response.’
After having a positive experience with her first couple of loans, Daughtry successfully raised $367 to purchase a fan, allowing her to remove the smokey air effectively. She also wanted to buy cooling racks with stands, as she was currently making do with bread cakes but felt ready to upgrade.
Another important purchase that Daughty made to her business was using a $509 loan to buy a second dough mixer. While she already had a large one, she knew that a smaller one would be better for mixing margarine and sugar, which she could then add to the larger mixer. She shared that her goal was to achieve, ‘quality, desirable color, and consistency in the ingredients used.’
Through her Zidisha funded loans, Daughty has also purchased muffin trays, staff uniforms, a cake mixer, a secondhand deck oven, and aluminum trays.
Perhaps her biggest purchase was in 2017 when she started her search for a van to allow her to transport her cakes. As she looked for the right van, she hoped to find a vehicle that would be affordable, could load all of her cakes, and a van in good condition. She shared, ‘This van will enable me to reach my customers in good time and I can cover a bigger area, currently I use an old pickup which breaks down quite often and on many occasions it breaks down before reaching the destination. With assured transport, both the supplier and the customer are assured of timely delivery. Am also convinced that with good transport we are able to reach more customers and in essence grow our customer base and profitability.’
Would you like to make a difference in the life of a Zidisha entrepreneur like Daughty? Make sure to head on over to our browse projects page to see how other business owners are using their Zidisha funded loans to transform their own lives and their communities.
Betsy is a Writer and Editor living in Florida with her husband. She has been writing with Zidisha for 5 years and loves sharing the inspiring stories of Zidisha entrepreneurs. You can connect with her on her personal website.
