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44 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 12.14 New Roots Farm-raised deliverance hen Karyn Moskowitz lived in west Louisville in 2007, she found her- self driving to Kroger in the Highlands or New Albany, Indiana, because she couldn't get fresh produce that looked or tast- ed good in her neighborhood. "I had a car, but not everybody does," she says. "So this lack of ac- cess has led to a high prevalence of diet-related illnesses, especially in children and disproportionate- ly in the food deserts." Moskowitz, 52, decided to work for Community Farm Alliance, which set up farmers' markets in neighborhoods that were underserved by grocery stores. But the markets didn't work. "There was one at Meyzeek (Middle School, in Smoketown) where farmers would come, but no consumers would come because it was just too expensive. Then in west Louisville, at Victory Park, the farmers simply wouldn't come," says Moskowitz. In 2009, she started New Roots as a way to negotiate with farm- ers. The idea was to get a bunch of families together, have them pay what they could as food sub- scribers. New Roots now has 650 families paying an average of $18 per family for each semimonthly shipment. "We say to the farmers, 'Give us 10 bushels of tomatoes, and can we pay a dollar instead of four because we're buying so many?'" Moskowitz says. Lorita Rowlett, a mother with a 13-year-old son, says turnips, pickled fennel and a stir-fry with caulifower have made their way into her kitchen. During cook- ing demonstrations, New Roots volunteer Meghan Levins will cut up napa cabbage, kohlrabi and a large hunk of beef for stir-fry. She gives cooking demonstrations so participants can see ways to put the produce to use. Levins says she grew up poor with a mom who managed to put healthy food on the table. "It just pissed me of for a really long time that there's this sort of attitude that poor people choose to eat like crap, so why give them anything better," she says. W W KeKe Brent and family at a New Roots event. Navigate Enterprise Center Startup smarts hen Dan Hefernan meets potential entrepre- neurs at Navigate Enterprise Center, he tells them they don't necessarily need a lot of formal education or start-up capital to be successful. He knows this from experience. Hefernan, a 44-year-old Minnesota native, started his frst business, a mobile DJ service, when he was at Brown College in Minneapolis. In his 20s, he was running a lucrative consulting service that helped struggling health clubs attract new clientele. He's had failures, too, including several Nextel and Sprint wireless stores he opened that took a nosedive. This kind of frsthand business knowledge is helpful in Hefernan's work as director of Navigate, a subsidiary of Jewish Family and Career Services (where Cannons and Dutchmans lanes meet). The center's been around since 1995 but has really expanded services since Hefernan took over in 2009. The organization does career coaching and job-search assistance, but the main focus is helping people who want to start businesses but have trouble fnding the traditional means to do so. People who come to the center often have bad (or nonexistent) credit. They're immigrants or refugees, they've done time in prison, they've fled for bankruptcy. A two-month course on business basics teaches po- tential entrepreneurs what they're in for. A "gut check" is how Hefernan describes it. "If you have 20 in a class, you're hoping that by the end of it, you're down to 10," he says. After that comes the loans (usually $500 to $6,500), created with money from grants and donations. Recipients pay back the loans, plus 8 percent interest, over one to three years. Some of the loans: $1,000 to purchase janitorial equipment and supplies, $1,500 for a taxi license, $4,000 to start a PB&J; sandwich shop. One person bought a machine to salt parking lots. Hefernan says Navigate has distribut- ed $350,000 in loans over the past fve years and that 92 percent of loans have been repaid or are in good standing. "These businesses are not the next Facebook," Hefernan says. "But they can make $25,000 or $30,000 a year, which means (recipients are) not on welfare anymore. They're starting something for their family." Mary Brackens, who lives in Portland, landed one of the 51 loans Navigate granted this year. Her business, which she started in October, is called Gift Basketballers. "It's a lot of diferent gift baskets," she says. "I have Christmas ones, a get-well-soon basket, a happy-birthday basket, movie bas- kets, golf baskets. I have like 15 or 20 diferent ones." Brack- ens, who says she has worked temp jobs since she was laid of from her government job in 2011, hopes the business will be a fresh start. "I have a vision that the business will grow," she says. "Maybe I'll hire some employees." Photo by James Bennett.