Number 196 November 10, 2022 St. Louis
Justine PETERSEN Joins Second Round of Veteran Loan Fund
Justine PETERSEN proudly announces its membership in the Veteran Loan Fund, a collaborative, national effort by Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to help underserved veterans and their spouses start and grow small businesses. The fund provides a specialized source of capital and a forum to share best practices and conduct advocacy efforts for lenders to originate loans and grow their local veteran programs. In its first year, the fund deployed over $15M to 231 small businesses across the nation. Justine PETERSEN will participate in the second round of deployment along with fellow CDFIs, totally $25M.
JP Staffer Marcus Bolden Served His Nation and Continues to Serve His Community
Consumers Council of Missouri to Celebrate and Honor Community this Sunday Through Fundraiser
This Sunday, November 13th the Consumers Council of Missouri will be hosting a fundraiser at the Ethical Society of Missouri. Centered around Building Equity and Healthy Communities money raised from the event will go towards advocacy of consumers’ interests, with a particular focus on health insurance, personal finances, and utilities. The event, which starts at 4pm, will be hosted by Sarah Fenske who is the former host of St. Louis Public Radio’s St. Louis on the Air and the current Executive Editor of Euclid Media Group. The lineup will include a panel discussion, in addition to awards, and of course appetizers and drinks. To attend this event and support the excellent work of the Consumers Council, please register here.
Justine PETERSEN Director of People & Operations, Tiffany Ware, Shines a Light on Entrepreneurship
On June 15, 2020 Justine PETERSEN’s Director of People & Operations, Tiffany Ware, began a multi-faceted journey she wasn’t even planning on five months earlier. Noticing a rise in big name brand candle companies’ prices, from products to shipping, Tiffany started to look into whether this was something she might be able to create on her own. After three months of research, she became well versed not only in the process, but in the industry itself. All that legwork paid off because once June 15th rolled around for launch, demand for her candles, Candlelit by Tiff, exceeded supply. As that pace kept up over the next year, a friend was thumbing through all her research documentation and observed how it read just like a book. So on October 21st Tiffany began her next venture into authorship, eventually publishing Candlelit by Tiff in September 2022. The book primarily focuses on navigating the industry, which as someone rooted in business management, felt most comfortable to Tiffany. Additionally, the book almost allows the reader to be their own author, providing a number of pages for writing in their own learnings and experiences.
With so many projects she’s balancing at JP and beyond, planning is critical for Tiffany. She has found that developing candle collections are most optimal, and her next one will be an R&B one with scents inspired by the likes of Monica’s Love All Over Me. Her next book, meanwhile, will either be a second volume of Candlelit by Tiff that focuses more on the candle making process, or a children’s book with an up-and-coming illustrator: her eight-year-old daughter, Aubrey! Tiffany’s entrepreneurial journey has not been a solo venture, taking along many familiar faces along the way including JP colleague Yolanda Nelson and lifelong friends now in New York’s publishing industry. To that end what Tiffany has learned more than anything is to “bet on your own brand!”
