Meet Evelyn
Evelyn is a loving mother and third-generation entrepreneur running three successful businesses in Los Angeles. After struggling to make ends meet, Evelyn joined Grameen America to build a business selling children’s toys, allowing her to build financial independence and spend more quality time with her two daughters.
Entrepreneurship is part of Evelyn’s family - her grandparents owned a farm, her mother sold food, and her father sold shoes. Growing up, Evelyn helped her parents sell products when they needed extra help. Today, Evelyn and her siblings continue their family’s legacy by each pursuing entrepreneurship.
“I am proud to come from a family that taught me how to create and sell. I have six brothers and sisters and we all have our own businesses today.”
After high school, Evelyn initially enrolled in college to become a dentist but made a difficult decision to leave school after becoming pregnant with her first daughter. Over the next 10 years, Evelyn tried her hands at a few different jobs, including tailoring, cleaning apartments, and renting party supplies. She dreamed of starting her own business one day but lacked the capital to make the investment needed to get a business off the ground.
In 2015, Evelyn learned about Grameen America from a fellow business owner and decided to join in hopes of building a business that would allow her to spend more time watching her daughters grow up. Evelyn joined Grameen America with a first-time loan of $1,000 and invested in toys.
“Selling children’s toys turned out to be a good business because I was good at selling to customers, and there were no other toy stores in the area. Grameen America helped me grow little by little, and I soon grew confident that I could grow my business into something bigger.”
Evelyn’s toy store has been in business for eight years now, and she has since started two additional businesses - an electronics store and an anime store. One of Evelyn’s business goals is to buy a space to use as storage for her growing number of products, allowing her to increase savings by buying her products in bulk.
In addition to her own upbringing, Evelyn attributes her fellow entrepreneurs as a key to her success.
“Joining Grameen America is the best decision I’ve ever made and is a big part of my success. I motivate members in my group to be disciplined and they do the same for me. We are a united Center with strong, responsible, and intelligent women and we want to see everyone succeed.”
Evelyn’s 17-year-old daughter is following in Evelyn’s footsteps and wants to get a certificate in business administration to be able to run her own businesses. Evelyn’s second daughter is also an entrepreneur at just 7 years old, selling snacks on the weekend from both a popcorn machine and ice shaver machine that Evelyn purchased for her.
“I want to teach my daughters how to be entrepreneurs, whether or not they choose to go down this path. I want my girls to be smart, independent, and overall be able to secure their own future success.”