AANHPI Heritage Month: Capital Reaching AANHPI Entrepreneurs and Homebuilders
OFN Communications Team
From Battle Creek, Michigan to Honokāʻa, Hawaiʻi, OFN member CDFIs are delivering capital and technical expertise to AANHPI communities.
Read time: 6 minutes
A Burmese restaurant bringing a community’s cuisine to Battle Creek. A taro farm sustaining one of Hawaiʻi’s most sacred food traditions. Native Hawaiian families finally building homes on their ancestral lands. Behind each is a CDFI that saw the cultural and economic stakes—and acted on them. This May, as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities mark Heritage Month under the theme “Power in Unity: Strengthening Communities Together,” these three stories show what that unity looks like when capital is part of the equation.
A Dream Built with Community Support: Battle Creek, Michigan
Za Nei Thuai had a building and a dream. The Burmese immigrant—known to her community as Suipi—had wanted to open a restaurant since she was young. When she arrived in Battle Creek, Michigan, she found a space and got to work. But what she didn’t have was a lender willing to say yes.
Mainstream financing was not the answer. What Suipi needed was a lender who understood both the business case and the community context. She found it in Northern Initiatives—an OFN member community development financial institution (CDFI) serving Michigan’s minority communities and areas of persistent poverty.
“I didn’t want to take a loan,” Suipi said, “but this was my dream since I was young.”
She quickly discovered that launching a business in the United States meant navigating building codes, health department requirements, and layers of regulation that were entirely unfamiliar.
Northern Initiatives closed that gap. Working alongside the City of Battle Creek and the Burma Center, they provided the financing and hands-on technical assistance Suipi needed, and helped develop a clearer picture of what Burmese American entrepreneurs specifically need to succeed in business here.
The result: Suipi’s East End Eatery is open, thriving, and serving authentic Burmese cuisine. She regularly caters events for more than 1,000 people. As one of the fastest-growing minority groups in the nation, Burmese Americans are building new economic roots across the Midwest—and CDFIs like Northern Initiatives are providing the infrastructure for that growth.
Read the full story: Michigan Entrepreneur Renovates Building for Burmese Restaurant with CDFI Support
Building What Conventional Housing Lenders Wouldn’t Finance: Hawai’i
Hawaiʻi Community Lending (HCL) was built because its founders knew the problem from lived experience. Co-founders Blossom Feiteira and Kehaulani Filimoeatu had each been on the Hawaiian Homelands waitlist for a residential lease for 30 years. When conventional lenders said no, they built an institution that could say yes—to families, first-time homebuyers, home builders, and homeowners.
Today HCL is Hawaiʻi’s premier nonprofit mortgage lender. Its loan fund has grown to $16 million, including $9 million specifically for home construction on Hawaiian Homelands—financing that has enabled more than 800 Native Hawaiians to build homes who had no path to do so before. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, HCL deployed more than $40 million in relief grants and loans, keeping over 4,000 families housed. After the August 2023 Maui fire, HCL supported 508 owner-occupant homeowners, including 104 Native Hawaiians at the Leialii homestead on Hawaiian Homelands.
Read the full story: Native CDFI Makes Affordable Housing on Homelands a Reality for Local Hawaiians
Mission-Aligned Capital for a Fourth-Generation Farm: Honokāʻa, Hawaiʻi
“Kahea” Kaaihili is a fourth-generation taro farmer and the owner of Mokuwai Piko Poi in Honokāʻa. Taro is one of Hawaiʻi’s most culturally significant crops, and the foundation of poi, central to Hawaiian cuisine and tradition. Kahea also leads the Waipio Valley Taro Farmers’ Association and advocates for the stewardship of Waipio Valley. As demand for locally grown taro grew, she saw a real opportunity to expand and reduce Hawaiʻi’s dependence on imported taro. Conventional banks saw her existing debt, lack of collateral, and need for specialized equipment—and said no.
OFN member Feed The Hunger Fund, a CDFI serving Hawaiʻi and California, recognized the economic and cultural stakes and said yes. The CDFI structured a layered loan package to finance equipment and consolidate debt, paired with hands-on technical assistance. The investment will rehabilitate more than 30 acres of loʻi kalo (traditional taro terraces), sustain existing jobs, and create new ones. Kahea’s farm now supplies Kau Kau 4 Keiki, which provides more than 220,000 meals to children each summer, and The Food Basket—Hawaiʻi’s food bank.
Read the full story: CDFI Nourishes Hawaiʻi’s Future with Funding for Healthy Food and Agriculture
The Pattern Behind the Stories
These stories span cultures, geographies, and sectors—food, housing, agriculture, small business—but they share the same market reality. In each, a community with clear economic activity and real demand was left without financing options by conventional lenders. In each, an OFN member CDFI stepped in with capital, technical expertise, and the willingness to understand what success required to help maintain the heritage and economic wellbeing of the community.
Learn more about OFN members serving AANHPI communities through our CDFI Locator, and explore additional impact stories on OFN.org.
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