San Francisco SBDC

Charming Sun market

“During the COVID-19 Pandemic, my business had experienced huge challenges and difficulties. The funds from the loan is really a big help in turning my business around. I want to express my sincere thanks to Gabriela and Lawrence for their professional work. Their tireless assistance is deeply appreciated. ” – Michelle Li, Owner of Charming Sun Market

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Charming Sun Market dba Jin Yang Market was found by Michelle Mei Rong Li in August 2013. As a health conscious person, Michelle saw a niche market when many of her customers started to ask her for healthy food. Over the last few years, Michelle has gradually brought in a lot of healthy and organic food for the Chinatown community and now she has established an iconic image for Charming Sun Market that it is a healthy food store in Chinatown. 

Despite her store is an essential business and remained open during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Michelle’s business was impacted due to reduced food traffic in Chinatown. She applied for different disaster relief grants at the beginning but none of them succeeded. Michelle was frustrated but she never gave up. In July 2021, Michelle reached out to SF SBDC and asked if we can help her apply for the newly introduced CA Rebuilding Fund Loan.  

With the guidance and assistance from advisor Gabriela, Michelle acted quickly and submitted her loan application. However, Michelle is a Chinese immigrant with limited English proficiency, additional assistance had to be provided from time to time by Case Manager Lawrence Liu. This synergistic effect from the SF Team was fully reflected in this case for helping non-English speaking business owners. Since Michelle needed to deliver customers’ orders after store hours, there were a number of times that the SF Team had to get on 3-way calls in the evening to help Michelle prepare her documents for her loan application. 

With hard work from all parties for almost 3 months, Michelle’s application for the 0% CA Rebuilding Fund Loan was finally approved and she received $100,000 in early October 2021. With the additional funds, Michelle was able to purchase more inventories to meet customers’ needs and is building out a website for her e-Commerce channel. Michelle also plans to re-hire a part time staff when the business becomes more stable.  

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, my business had experienced huge challenges and difficulties. The funds from the loan is really a big help in turning my business around. I want to express my sincere thanks to Gabriela and Lawrence for their professional work. Their tireless assistance is deeply appreciated.

Michelle Mei Rong Li
Founder and Owner of Charming Sun Market