This week, a Detroit faith-based fund that helps poor families and small businesses is branching out from its roots in the Episcopal Church to involve the larger interfaith community.
The $3.2-million McGehee Economic Justice Fund, named to honor former Michigan Episcopal Bishop H. Coleman McGehee Jr., already has helped to build low-income housing, launch small businesses and fund a child-care center in southwest Detroit. Among the small businesses are the Java in the Park coffee shop in Detroit's Rosedale Park and the Habitat ReStore, which resells used building materials, in northeast Detroit.
Today, the fund's sponsors are celebrating the adoption of an even larger mission and a new name: the Michigan McGehee Interfaith Loan Fund.
"We now have a new board with representatives from other faith groups, including Baptists, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, a Jewish representative," said John Hooper, executive director of the fund. "Now, we expect the fund will grow even larger and we can do more to help people."
The program is fueled by individuals and religious groups who want to help the poor by investing at least $500 with the fund. "Some investors don't want any interest from us. For others, we pay up to 4 percent interest," Hooper said.
Then, the fund turns around and loans that money at low interest rates to groups that build affordable housing, start small businesses and launch programs to help poor people.
The legal reorganization of the group this week is crucial to attract investment from the wider religious community, said Rabbi Marla Feldman, assistant director of the Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Detroit who has worked closely with Hooper.
"Now that the interfaith fund is up and running, this lets us go to the next phase, which is introducing this fund to our own faith communities," Feldman said.
Representatives from several Protestant denominations also are poised to promote the fund among their congregations, Hooper said.
"This fund is a blessing," said Kathy Tuggle, who was awarded an $80,000 loan in September to open Angelwings Childcare in a newly built home in southwest Detroit. "The banks never would have helped me to start ths business, even though the need is so great for child care in this area."
For information about investing in he fund, call 313-964-7307, or call 313-964-7309 for information about taking out a loan, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays.