Amanda Sweeney is all about building community through fresh food.
She’s a gardener, farmer, and grocery store owner with a genuine passion for local foods grown with natural methods and lots of aloha. “I love being outside. I love getting my hands in the dirt. I love the delayed gratification of planting something, and then a year later, seeing your results. It’s awesome.”
Based on the Big Island of Hawai’i, Amanda’s small business, Kainaliu Fresh Grocery, offers 100% Hawai’i Island produced fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, and packaged goods. “It’s always been about food for me. It’s my passion.”
She sees her business as a way to uplift local farmers, ranchers, and fisherman, as well as reduce food waste and the dependence on imported food. And at the heart of it all are the relationships, most of whom she met working at the farmer’s markets. “We work with a lot of small producers, so folks that are only working on one to three acres of land. It’s more of an intimate relationship versus a large-scale operation.”
Today, 80-90% of Hawai’i’s food is imported, leaving their food system vulnerable to supply chain interruptions and natural disasters. “We’re thousands of miles away from any kind of continental land. So, if we can grow our own food, we should,” Amanda explains
Like many small business owners, Amanda’s biggest challenge is securing funding to expand what she can do for her customers and upgrade her equipment to create a better experience for them. And after one of her farmers told her about Kiva, a nonprofit organization that distributes microloans to small business owners around the world, she was able to apply for a loan and eventually purchase new refrigeration equipment and upgrade shop electrical. “It was the kickstart I really needed to start being an actual business.”
Her community came together to crowdfund, and with their overwhelming love and support, Amanda caught Kiva’s attention. “Amanda has such reach with her community,” says Brit Heiring, Kiva’s Director of Communications. “Her business is supporting farmers in the area, so this loan was a really good way to illustrate something that we’re proud of at Kiva. Our loans don’t just impact individuals. They impact communities.”
A loan helped a woman-owned small grocery store reach its immediate goals. But the impact didn’t stop there. A year later, thanks to Kiva’s loan and the community’s continued support, Amanda’s business is scaling. “We’ve signed the lease on the unit next door. And in the next month or so, we’re knocking the wall out and doubling our retail space. I can’t believe it!” she said.
In 2023, to celebrate our commitment to women-owned small businesses, we made a $25,000 donation to Kiva. As part of our International Women’s Day tribute, this donation helped over 2,000 women across 54 countries scale their business over one year, and Amanda was just one of them. Since then, our initial microloans were repaid, and that repayment was turned back around as a reinvestment toward more loans to support a new cohort of entrepreneurs as they grow and expand their small businesses.
To learn more about Kiva and the small businesses we are helping together, visit kiva.org.
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