The Camden Food Fund has made its first four investments into Camden city food businesses participating in or helping to advance a healthy, equitable local food economy. These four loans are part of a pilot to learn the best way to reach and impact the needs of food entrepreneurs in Camden.

Using a resident-centered approach to leadership, the Community Foundation of South Jersey staff worked with the community advisory board to co-design a strategy including business outreach, an accessible application process, and a needed loan product to meet the needs of food entrepreneurs. The Fund’s initial investments are character-based loans. Character based-loans go beyond a credit score and look at the whole picture of a person’s ability to pay back a loan.

The four businesses to receive funds are:

• El Burger Bar Restaurant and Catering, a successful brick-and-mortar that had to relocate due to complications with renovating and purchasing their past building, will use the funds to buy all new energy compliant equipment to open in their new location.
• The Breakfast Palace, a brick-and-mortar cafe that provides homecooked breakfast and lunch to the community, is expanding to include an outdoor patio area.
• Exquisite Catering has secured a location to formalize the start up breakfast and lunch take out business in connection with a ghost kitchen space.
• Shelpots, a successful Halal brick-and-mortar restaurant that lost their previous location due to the landlord doubling the rent, is using the loans funds to reopen a take out and catering business in Camden.

The four entrepreneurs that received funding were provided with access to technical assistance resources. Additionally, all entrepreneurs that were not advanced to funding for this pilot were offered a one-on-one workshop with a food business coach to help them become loan ready for future funds.
At the celebration event held on January 27th, Samyria Parker of The Breakfast Palace said, “[The Camden Food Fund] is the first [initiative] that decided to take a chance [on me] and I will forever be grateful for you guys because it’s very hard to be in the food industry.”

The Camden Food Fund is housed with the Community Foundation of South Jersey (CFSJ). The Fund’s launch was made possible by a multiyear grant to the Community Foundation from The Campbell’s Foundation. Campbell’s also provided the first round of capital for these four pilot loans.
The Camden Food Fund will launch a second pilot in the spring with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This funding will increase the maximum loan amount to $50,000 and include a technical assistance program for a targeted eight more entrepreneurs.

The Community Foundation of South Jersey (CFSJ) is pleased to welcome Bill Wells to the Community Foundation Board of Directors. Bill serves as a Vice President for Regional Commercial Banking at TD Bank.

Bill’s work includes providing real estate investors and businesses with financing as well as acting as a touchpoint for the full business banking relationship. Bill has skills in credit analysis, underwriting, account management, financial risk analysis, and managing portfolios for commercial banking clients including financing opportunities and wealth management. Bill serves on the finance committee of the Cherry Hill Free Clinic, and the Princeton Mercer Regional Chamber. He is a graduate of The College of New Jersey.

“I am grateful to Bill for sharing his skills and leadership gifts with the Community Foundation,” said Executive Director Andy Fraizer. “His experience and relationships in the finance industry help CFSJ develop insights to support professional advisors in the South Jersey region.”

The Community Foundation creates philanthropy vehicles—advised funds, issue funds, designated agency funds, scholarship and other fund types to make grants for charitable impact. CFSJ provides charitable gift planning vehicles and assistance to support professional advisors such as attorneys, accountants, brokers, bankers, trust officers, life insurance agents, financial planners, and more. CFSJ works with generous families and businesses including nonprofit organizations to build endowments that grow and benefit the region forever.

Lois Greco, CFSJ Board Chair said, “Bill brings valuable knowledge, a fresh perspective, and a commitment to grow regional philanthropy. His ideas and insights will open relationships and help build connections and programs for the Community Foundation as a philanthropy partner for regional impact.”

“I am excited to use the knowledge I have gathered to assist in pursuing the vision of CFSJ,” Bill shared. “I am grateful for the opportunity to work with fellow board members and to enhance the Foundation’s efforts to build informed philanthropic efforts in the area.”

Other members of the Board of Directors include:

Chairperson Lois Greco (Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities)
Vice Chair Lori Pepenella (Southern Ocean County Chamber of Commerce)
Secretary Valeria Galarza (ALTA Impact Partners)
Treasurer Justin Van Fleet (Marcum LLP)
Joseph C. Atkinson (PwC LLP)
H. Qawi Austin (Q&A Thought Partners, LLC)
Alisa Cooper (New Jersey Casino Control Commission)
Wanda Hardy (Financial Wellness Institute)
Teresa Giménez (University of Pennsylvania)
Jeremy Grunin (Grunin Foundation)
Evan Linhardt (Alliance Bernstein)

Camden residents who own small food-based businesses have a new source of loans to maintain or grow their businesses: the Camden Food Fund. The Fund will provide capital to small new and existing food-based business owners who live in Camden, face obstacles to accessing capital to maintain or grow their businesses, and participate in or help to advance a healthy, equitable local food economy. 

In an initial pilot phase, loans will range from $500 to $15,000, depending on the business’s use of the loan funds. The Fund prefers to support for-profit entities initially, but will consider non-profit investments with strong impact alignment. Learnings from the pilot phase will inform future decisions and financing tools from the Fund.

The Camden Food Fund is housed with the Community Foundation of South Jersey (CFSJ). The Fund’s launch is made possible by a multi-year grant to the Community Foundation from The Campbell’s Foundation. Campbell’s will also provide the first round of capital for lending.

Using a resident-centered approach to leadership, the Fund was designed in partnership with a Community Advisory Board (CAB) which set strategy and guided the design of the Fund to meet the needs of food entrepreneurs. The CAB will direct resources to support the Fund’s mission and will be supported by a volunteer Impact Investment Committee with the expertise to assess the financial viability and social impact of potential investments.

The Fund’s initial investments are character-based loans. The pilot structure challenges the ways in which credit and financial information is too often the sole basis for loan underwriting.
The Camden Food Fund envisions that historically excluded food entrepreneurs will have improved access to funding and opportunities that contribute to the success and growth of their business and the Camden community. “I have heard about organizations and programs doing similar work, but it is a completely different endeavor to be able to actively participate in creating a new way of doing business. Most importantly to be able to do it in a community so close to my heart.” said Patricia Pena, the President of the Community Advisory Board.

Andy Fraizer, CFSJ Executive Director said, “This Fund work began with trust-building with neighbors, evolved to learning together, and is moving now to provide capital consistent with resident-centered strategy. The CFSJ team are grateful to be in relationship with CAB members and the support of The Campbell’s Foundation to work at the speed of community.”