Washington CASH & Rodriguez on King5!

Program helps working poor achieve business success 11:22 AM PDT on Thursday, September 17, 2009 By JENNIFER CABALA / KING 5 News

To view video, click here.SEATTLE - With more people out of work, entrepreneurship is booming.

The Washington Community Association for Self-Help, or Washington CASH, has seen the number of people seeking help to become entrepreneurs grow by more than 40 percent this year.

Many of them, like Rosy Rodriguez, start their own businesses. Rodriguez formed El Cuento Spanish Immersion Preschool after attending an 8-week long business program at Washington CASH last year.

"I had a lot of experience from Mexico and working for different bilingual schools, and I just wanted to make my own business," said Rodriguez.

In addition to business training, Rodrigues attends a bi-monthly entrepreneur support group at Washington CASH and was able to get a $1,000 loan from her group to help furnish the school.

Washington CASH's Executive Director, Cheryl Sesnon, said many of their clients have bad credit or no credit and no collateral, so they use a peer lending model popularized overseas.

"I apply for a loan and my peer group approves it," explained Sesnon. "Then they sign off on it and if I'm late on my payments nobody else in the group can get a loan until it's caught up, so there's social collateral there."

Washington CASH has had a lot of success - 75% of their clients increase their income, and 67% of their poorest clients are able to get out of poverty.

"Success in the Washington CASH world looks like people who come in with low incomes and they get themselves above the poverty line the first year," said Sesnon. "And they continue to grow until they have a sustainable business and sometimes as many as five employees."

Rodrigues isn't ready to hire employees yet, but after six months in business she has nearly a dozen happy students, including Karina Luboff's son, Balti.

"He's really happy with the school here, and he's really excited to go every day," said Luboff.

Rodriguez is thrilled to see her business grow and is proud to move from teacher in Mexico to American entrepreneur.

"I love kids and just wanted to use my own experience to do something on my own," said Rodriguez.