My First Recycled Kiva Loan

Pretty cool news... my first Kiva loan was paid back and refunded back to me.

In June, I was one of five Kiva members to lend Maria from Mexico a total of $150.  Maria (pictured below left) was hoping to buy a new taco cart to provide better service to her customers and hoped to pay back the loan in 3 months.  I contributed $25 and, on schedule, the loan was completely repaid on September 15th... and the money refunded to me this past Monday.

I had the option of withdrawing the funds, but had I even missed that $25 in the past 3 months?  Thankfully, no... a decade ago, the answer would have been "yes."  So I was able to take that very same $25 and pass it on to Edith in Paraguay (pictured upper right), who much like Maria is a self-employed businesswoman who also plans to expand her business by adding a hamburger restaurant to her convenience store.

I was lucky enough to find a loan!  Kiva has been experiencing a huge boost of new lenders.  As mentioned in a recent Express Lane item, The Today Show had a feature on the organization... but reached an absolute frenzy thanks to a one-two punch mention in President Clinton's new book Giving and a subsequent appearance on Oprah.  There was so much interest generated that Kiva ran out of loans for several days and the number of available loans is still pretty low compared to when I joined back in June.

To give you an idea of the amount of new lenders... including myself, 30 people contributed towards Edith's loan request of $800.... 21 of the 30 joined Kiva since the beginning of this month!

President Clinton's book is subtitled "How Each Of Us Can Change The World"... and I can't think of a better example of that than Kiva (and I feel compelled to mention my other favorite self-empowerment charity and profiled in Giving as well... Heifer.org). 

Individually it doesn't take much... a dinner for two at Applebees or a quartet of double tall non-fat extra-dry vanilla lattes... and while you are literally lending a helping hand to your fellow (wo)man... selfishly, it's you who gets the "feel good" reward.

Comments

[Lady Hooligan Kat]

I'm totally onboard with you, Bill Clinton's book "Giving" and most importantly with KIVA.org! I just signed up last week and have made 2 loans and purchased one gift certificate too. Congrats on your first recycled loan!