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Sean Murray: Sure, so you said
that you've, you've helped

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businesses get PPP EIDL. You
didn't charge them. But what, so

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what I'm curious about and all
that, right, is that you worked

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a lot with the, you know, the
Latin community during COVID.

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And I'm curious, you know, and
we've asked this question, I've

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asked this question a bunch of
times, you know, what were

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merchants telling you? What were
small businesses telling you,

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but I feel like I've never
gotten that answer, specifically

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from the Latin demographic,
like, what was the Latin? What

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was the Latin community telling
you during COVID?

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Sonia Alvelo: They were
devastated, you know, just not a

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lot of information in the Latino
community. In terms about, well,

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nobody was expecting what
happened. First of all, we as a

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company, we, you know, had a
rough time as well as everybody.

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But we decided, okay, you know,
what, there's something that we

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can do in that time, which was,
help them with the SBA. And, you

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know, the stories, they break my
heart, it wasn't easy, because

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you know, what, I was listening
to those stories over and over,

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and, you know, what are we gonna
do? We don't have the money. I

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didn't have the answers, Sean at
all, you know, I was worried

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about my own company at the
time, but, you know, listening

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to them, I understood that it
you know, it wasn't, I wasn't

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the only one, you know, that who
was going through that, I think

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it's it's not a lot of
information for the Latino

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community through crisis. And
that's, I think that I got

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overwhelmed. Because everybody
was calling and getting trying

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to, you know, Latino community,
they, if I do have a job with

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you, they gonna tell somebody
else, and they're gonna tell

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somebody else. And you know, my
phones, it was like ringing and

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ringing throughout the days. And
trust me, I get calls from

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Puerto Rico, Latinos at seven
o'clock in the morning, or at 10

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o'clock at night. And sometimes
I have to stop and think, okay,

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you know, what, I'll call them
tomorrow, but we just, I am who

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I am now, because of them. So,
you know, anything that I can do

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for the community, regardless,
it's not easy. But I will do it.

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Sean Murray: Were there some who
didn't even know about PPP or

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EIDL until you told them?

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Sonia Alvelo: It's it's crazy
how many people to this day,

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they don't know, they don't even
know about the increase.

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Sean Murray: They don't know
about the increase? We're

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talking about the EIDL increase.

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Sonia Alvelo: Correct.

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Sean Murray: Okay, you're you're
the first person to tell them

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basically,

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Sonia Alvelo: Yes. And it's
scary, you know, you know, you

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know, first of all, I am
surprised when they asked me,

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what is that? Uh, you know, at
first, with the PPP. What is

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that? They had no idea. I was
like, okay, I gotta translate

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this in Spanish, you know, this
is not what I what I had in

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mind. Yeah. So but, um, the
SBA.gov they have, you know, you

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know, the information in all the
languages. So, that's what I

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realized, you know, I was like,
okay, you got to read it first,

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you know, have to send that
over, and you gotta read it, and

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then call me back, I wanted to
make sure that they understand

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and the guidelines that we're
changing, so it was, it was

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horrific, you know, the process
but it's not like I said, again,

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not a lot of information for
them. So I learned as like, you

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know, watching the news, you
know, and through my, my, my

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actual lender for my business
account. They were amazing with

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us. So yeah.