Sean Murray: Sure, so you said that you've, you've helped
businesses get PPP EIDL. You didn't charge them. But what, so
what I'm curious about and all that, right, is that you worked
a lot with the, you know, the Latin community during COVID.
And I'm curious, you know, and we've asked this question, I've
asked this question a bunch of times, you know, what were
merchants telling you? What were small businesses telling you,
but I feel like I've never gotten that answer, specifically
from the Latin demographic, like, what was the Latin? What
was the Latin community telling you during COVID?
Sonia Alvelo: They were devastated, you know, just not a
lot of information in the Latino community. In terms about, well,
nobody was expecting what happened. First of all, we as a
company, we, you know, had a rough time as well as everybody.
But we decided, okay, you know, what, there's something that we
can do in that time, which was, help them with the SBA. And, you
know, the stories, they break my heart, it wasn't easy, because
you know, what, I was listening to those stories over and over,
and, you know, what are we gonna do? We don't have the money. I
didn't have the answers, Sean at all, you know, I was worried
about my own company at the time, but, you know, listening
to them, I understood that it you know, it wasn't, I wasn't
the only one, you know, that who was going through that, I think
it's it's not a lot of information for the Latino
community through crisis. And that's, I think that I got
overwhelmed. Because everybody was calling and getting trying
to, you know, Latino community, they, if I do have a job with
you, they gonna tell somebody else, and they're gonna tell
somebody else. And you know, my phones, it was like ringing and
ringing throughout the days. And trust me, I get calls from
Puerto Rico, Latinos at seven o'clock in the morning, or at 10
o'clock at night. And sometimes I have to stop and think, okay,
you know, what, I'll call them tomorrow, but we just, I am who
I am now, because of them. So, you know, anything that I can do
for the community, regardless, it's not easy. But I will do it.
Sean Murray: Were there some who didn't even know about PPP or
EIDL until you told them?
Sonia Alvelo: It's it's crazy how many people to this day,
they don't know, they don't even know about the increase.
Sean Murray: They don't know about the increase? We're
talking about the EIDL increase.
Sonia Alvelo: Correct.
Sean Murray: Okay, you're you're the first person to tell them
basically,
Sonia Alvelo: Yes. And it's scary, you know, you know, you
know, first of all, I am surprised when they asked me,
what is that? Uh, you know, at first, with the PPP. What is
that? They had no idea. I was like, okay, I gotta translate
this in Spanish, you know, this is not what I what I had in
mind. Yeah. So but, um, the SBA.gov they have, you know, you
know, the information in all the languages. So, that's what I
realized, you know, I was like, okay, you got to read it first,
you know, have to send that over, and you gotta read it, and
then call me back, I wanted to make sure that they understand
and the guidelines that we're changing, so it was, it was
horrific, you know, the process but it's not like I said, again,
not a lot of information for them. So I learned as like, you
know, watching the news, you know, and through my, my, my
actual lender for my business account. They were amazing with
us. So yeah.