Create Jobs Columbia Connection

By now many people know about Starbucks Create Jobs for USA program. What you may not know is that Enterprise Community Loan Fund based right here in Columbia is one of the Community Development Financial Institutions that is where the rubber meets the road in this grassroots effort to get people back to work.

Yesterday, Lori Chatman, the president of the Enterprise Community Loan Fund, was on Mid Day with Dan Rodericks on WYPR, along with Adam Brotman from Starbucks and Mark Pinsky with the Opportunity Finance Network giving examples of how this money gets from your pocket and out into communities to create jobs. Enterprise is both a local and national CDFI

Dan also wrote a column about the Create Jobs for USA program in The Sun. He makes the argument that this is type of thing that cuts across partisan lines.

“This effort should appeal to fed-up Americans of all political stripes, even those who don't like Starbucks coffee or prefer locally owned home brews instead of a chain with more than 7,000 locations. (There's no obligation to buy Starbucks java if you only want to purchase a bracelet.) The Occupy Wall Street protesters could fold their tents if all of them, and their extended family of silent supporters, were to buy bracelets and help the CDFIs grow jobs from the ground up, in the local economies in which the 99 percent of us live, work and consume. Tea party members should admire the effort to do an end-run on government to kick-start some job creation.”

According to Adam Brotman, in the first week of the promotion which started on November 1^st, over $1 million was donated by Starbucks customers.

I also ran across this video of a company that bought Create Jobs for USA bracelets for all 500 of their employees.

I can tell you that every stocking in my household will have a red white and blue bracelet this Christmas too.