Blog for Rural America

The Center for Rural Affairs, a private, non-profit organization, is working to strengthen small businesses, family farms and ranches, and rural communities. Permission to reprint items from this web log is hereby granted, on the condition that clear credit is given to the original source of the material. If the blog provides information for a story, please let us know by sending an email to johnc@cfra.org.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

REAP Program Announces New Staff Hiring

-- from the desk of Jeff Reynolds, REAP Program Co-Director
Center for Rural Affairs

The Rural Enterprise Assistance Project (REAP), a program of the Center for Rural Affairs, is pleased to announce the hiring of Adriana Dungan as our new Northeast REAP Business Specialist. Adriana holds a BA degree in Accounting from the Alfa Institute at Guadalajara, Mexico and a BA degree in Music and BD degree in Graphic Design from the University of Guadalajara, Mexico.

Adriana most recently worked as the Health Promoter for the NAF Multicultural Human Development Corporation at South Sioux City and also was Director of Training at Mission Mateo 25 at Sioux City, IA. Adriana was instrumental in promoting and instructing the Spanish version REAP business plan training at South Sioux City. In addition, she was the key person to get the REAP Asociación de Comercio Latino (REAP Latino Business Association) Roundtable group formed at South Sioux City.

Adriana will be providing REAP services in the following Northeast Nebraska counties: Antelope, Boone, Burt, Cedar, Colfax, Cuming, Dakota, Dixon, Dodge, Knox, Madison, Nance, Pierce, Platte, Stanton, Thurston, and Wayne.

REAP is Nebraska’s largest microenterprise program and operates on a statewide, rural basis through regionally based Business Specialists. REAP provides lending, training, networking, and technical assistance opportunities for startup and existing small microenterprises (businesses with 5 or fewer employees).

REAP also provides “peer group” loans up to $10,000 through locally formed associations of small business people through a “step up” process and individually up to $25,000 through the REAP Direct loan program. The Direct loan program was added in 1999. Since 1990, REAP has placed 276 peer group loans totaling $473,423. Since 1999, REAP has placed 159 direct loans totaling $2,187,708. REAP has leveraged an additional $5,119,320 in loans from traditional sources since 1999 due to its business planning and loan packaging services.

REAP collaborates with many other individuals and organizations and is a member of the Nebraska Enterprise Opportunity Network (NEON). NEON is the trade association in Nebraska for microenterprise programs and offers policy and training opportunities for microenterprise programs and practitioners. A complete listing of microenterprise service providers in Nebraska can be found at http://www.nebbiz.org/gsearch.php.

Established in 1973, the Center for Rural Affairs is a private, non-profit organization working to strengthen small businesses, family farms and ranches, and rural communities through action oriented programs addressing social, economic, and environmental issues.

Adriana operates from a home based office at South Sioux City and began her duties on May 2nd. Adriana can be reached at (402) 494-1013 or adungan@msn.com.

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