What a concept! Solicit funds from well-intentioned people from around the world to make small, low interest, loans to small entrepreneurs who want to begin start-up businesses in third-world countries. How have they fared? To date, over 675,000 lenders from 192 countries have made some 170,000 loans. These loans totaled over $121 million dollars with the average loan amounting to just $399. The rate of repayment is over 98 percent.

This amazing “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” approach undertaken by Kiva caught our attention three years ago Kiva is a non-profit microcredit facilitating organization that makes use of the Internet and a roster of vetted Field Partners throughout the world to connect lenders and entrepreneurs.

Submitted by Josh Blinder

It is with great sadness that I report the death of Betty Hilton, wife of NOVES member Joel Feinglass and herself a former member of the Washington Ethical Society. Betty was someone whom I knew not only from the Ethical Society circles, but as a colleague at the B'nai B'rith International Headquarters, when we both worked there during the late Eighties and early Nineties. She was soft-spoken and gentle in demeanor, but had a tenacious will and much energy in everything she did. It was a sad day for Betty and Joel's friends in the Washington area when they decided to move back to San Antonio, Texas, where Betty had originally lived before coming East, but we frequently heard news about the two of them.