Carlos Castro was working as a maintenance worker at an indoor swap meet in Salinas, California—a predominantly Latino community in Monterey County best known for its agricultural production. When the owner of the swap meet offered to sell Carlos a toy store located in the same building, he seized the opportunity, recognizing the doors that business ownership could open.
After purchasing Super Toys, Carlos struggled to secure the capital he needed to grow the business. Traditional financing was hard to come by, so his community stepped in: friends and family lent him the money for his initial inventory purchases.
Earlier this year, Carlos heard about an impending tariff hike on goods imported from China, where he sources most of his products. A slight increase in costs could jeopardize his business, so he began searching for a loan to stock up before the new tariffs went into effect. That’s when he discovered El Pájaro Community Development Corporation, a Watsonville-based, mission-driven lender focused on small business development.
El Pájaro provided Carlos with a low-interest $15,000 loan through their Racial Equity Lens program, which uses an alternative framework to assess applicants’ creditworthiness. Instead of relying on traditional metrics, this model evaluates borrowers using the “new 4Cs of Credit”: character, commitment, conditions, and capacity. The Racial Equity Lens was developed to address the systemic barriers that often prevent entrepreneurs in under-resourced communities from accessing capital through conventional means.
With the loan from El Pájaro, Carlos drove to Los Angeles and stocked up on inventory—successfully avoiding the steep cost increases the tariffs would bring. On a recent return trip, he discovered that wholesale prices had already risen by approximately 45%. Thanks to the financing, Super Toys was able to continue operating, and Carlos gained the breathing room he needed to plan his next steps thoughtfully.