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July 2004
Announcements:
Linkages will soon be moving to a new location! Goodwill has kindly offered us a space at their new building on Cherrybell and Silverlake. We hope to move to our new location by the end of August.
Planning for a ribbon-cutting ceremony is underway. Look for your invite near Mid-August and join Linkages, Jim Click, the Mayor and many other special guests at our new offices for this special event.
Success Story of the Month:
Blind Business Owner Earns Profits and Respect
By Ethan Orr - Executive Director, Linkages
Lupita Hernandez like many small business owners works long hours promoting the products that she loves, is ambitious to achieve, and intelligent about the way she implements her market strategy. From her balance sheets and fiscal outlay you would have no way of telling that she has been blind from birth. Currently she owns three small businesses and has been a business owner since 1997.
Her businesses include a dollar store, raising and auctioning livestock and Avon sales. Through Avon sales alone she has ten representatives and helpers working under her. She markets to the blind community by transcribing her promotional materials into Braille. Overall she enjoys the leadership and the opportunity to serve her customers. Paul Borquez, one of Lupita’s friends, most admires her drive and focus, he noted that “every week she spends five hours memorizing information about her products while someone reads her the information.” She has the focus to set a goal and stay on track until she achieves it.
Lupita laughs as she describes her first business motivation, “My goal was to be a taxpayer, I wanted to feel like I was contributing.” Her current goals are more ambitious, she hopes to continue to expand her businesses and be able to employ people with other disabilities. “I could employ a mentally challenged individual to help me with loading materials or a physically challenged accountant to assist with the bookkeeping.” Lupita credits her mother Lola Hernadez for helping instill the drive to overcome. “My mother never let me back down from a challenge because of my disability. According to Amy Murillo, the Project Manager for the Ready Set Go Job Readiness Program at Southern Arizona Association for the Visually Impaired (SAAVI), “ Lupita is not afraid to take a chance. She puts in a lot of hard work and has earned people’s respect based on her merit.”
The two greatest problems Lupita faced in establishing her businesses was a lack of transportation services in rural Pima County and an unwillingness for people with sight to believe that she was a business owner. Paul Borquez remembers that when he started helping Lupita sell “people would come up to him and ask if she (Lupita) was his little helper,” and were always shocked to hear that she owned the business. In fact, Paul jokes, “if I fell off the face of the earth her businesses would do just fine.”
Another aspect of Lupita’s life is her sense of civic responsibility. She has consistently used part of her profits to support the community. After the fires in the Pinetop area she donated supplies to the residents. She also contributes to the El Tour de Tucson and the Tu Nidito programs. Also, she works with the SAAVI to help other people without sight to prepare for job interviews, assisting with make up and interview techniques, because as Lupita says, “I like to make people feel like they have value.” Lupita is also training for her forth Tour de Tucson; she rides a tandem bike with a sighted driver. Her goal is to earn a gold medal this year, by completing the 110 miles in fewer than 6 hours.
At the end of the day Lupita believes “that everyone faces a challenge, but it is the drive and character inside that determines success.”
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