L.A.-based Lendistry Celebrates 10 Years While Continuing Commitment to Wildfire-Impacted Businesses
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Lendistry, a Small Business Administration (SBA) lender and CDFI based in Los Angeles celebrated 10 years of service to the community on October 10, highlighting their over $10 billion in loans and grants provided over the decade.
While that is an impressive number, the evening also sought to highlight the company’s role in aiding those impacted by January’s devastating Palisades and Eaton Fires that swept though L.A. County, said Everett K. Sands, CEO of Lendistry.
After awarding three wildfire-impacted businesses at the anniversary event, their owners were offered a chance to speak about the grants they received from generous sponsors. “They talked not so much about the grant that they won, but just the different events that have been going on in their world,” said Sands.
The businesses, including Altadena’s Webster’s Community Pharmacy, Pasadena’s Experience Fable and Pacific Palisades’ Amazing Music Store all found their lines of business destroyed or unable to continue after January, and were among the many small businesses in the region that would become reliant on the kind of help that companies like Lendistry provide.
PJ Hildebrand, owner of the Amazing Music Store which had served the Palisades community for almost half a century, was grateful for the aid after the life-changing event.
“After losing our store, being named a grantee was humbling and helps us keep the hope alive,” said Hildebrand.
“We’re a community that must reinvent, revive and recover after this tragedy. It takes time, but with hope, recognition and support, we can – and we will,” he continued.
Of course, fire recovery efforts are just one aspect of Lendistry’s mission. The company has aided innumerable small businesses through different needs, including startup funding, expansion, and aid during hardships or other unexpected losses. This, said Sands, is the meat of the company’s mission.
He also identified that these services will be needed urgently in a region that is especially hard-hit by inflation, tariff worries and high costs of operation.
“As we talk to more businesses, they understand that they’ll have to pay a little more, they might have to do a little ‘right-sizing,’ and they might have to borrow more capital, he said. “When it’s a moving target, that’s really hard.”
To aid in weathering this – or any hardship – Lendistry seeks to provide what Sands describes as “stability”: A chance for businesses to survive and thrive in Los Angeles and beyond.
Even with the high costs of operation here in Southern California, Sands said that L.A. was the best place for Lendistry to operate from. “L.A. has a wealth of talent, of information and of opportunities,” he said.
For the future, Sands hopes that Lendistry can continue to provide loans to those who need them while also providing tools for small businesses to thrive, including utilizing rapidly evolving tech like AI to create cost savings for customers – often those who need it most.
While many important financial leaders were welcomed at the Lendistry event, including Martin Breidsprecher, COO of the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce, and Patrick Henning, California’s Chief Deputy Treasurer, there was a guest that stuck out to Sands – one who had a story for him.
He explained that the person, who had done social media work for the company in the past said, “I told my dad I was headed to this event, and when I said it was for Lendistry, he said, ‘son, they gave me two loans – so just tell them thank you.’”
“It gave me chills,” said Sands. “That’s the win for me.”
