- Article Type
- Success Story
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Fanny Crystal Jewelry
Fanny Crystal Jewelry is located on 51138th Ave in Brooklyn Chinatown and has been in the business of jewelry since 2010. For the past 22 years, Fanny and her husband Wai had a good reputation in their neighborhood. Prior to the pandemic, they were at 51178th Ave. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Fanny and her family lost their source of income and their business was forced to remain shut down through August 2021. However, their previous landlord still demanded the rent be paid every month. They decided to move to the next door building, where the rent was significantly cheaper, and subleased space from the entire storefront to reopen. Finally, this immigrant-owned, family business found a way to survive. It was an honor for Universal Processing to become a Tier 1 National Spoke for the SBA’s Community Navigator Pilot Program (CNPP). One of the first missions Universal Processing received from USPAACC was to assist business owners in underserved communities to apply for SBAEIDL, Target EIDL Advance, and Supplemental Target Advance Grants and Loans. When business started recovering in December 2021, Fanny called Kai Zhang to reactivate their credit card service. It was then that Kai learned of the hardships and challenges that they had gone through the last two years. As a CNPP project manager, Kai Zhang represented the company to attend SBA’s program training office hours. Knowing that Fanny Crystal would meet the eligibility requirements for the grants and loans, Kai assisted the owner in the application process. A month later, Fanny Crystal Jewelry received $10,000 from SBA’s Target EIDL Advance. A message from Fanny (translate from Chinese to English): Hello Zhang, Thank you so much for helping our business to apply for the government’s financial support during the most difficult time of the pandemic. It was finally approved in January 2022. Because we don’t speak English, we did not know that small businesses like ours were qualified to apply. After our call with Zhang, he listened to our story and informed us that our business may qualify for government assistance. He was very passionate about assisting us to apply without asking for anything in return. It helped us to eventually get through the hard times. I am grateful for Zhang’s kindness and support and I am grateful for the U.S government’s aid. I am very touched and I wanted to share this here. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Best, The owner of Fanny Crystal Jewelry |