Mary O'Kief, Southern Oregon Women's Access to Credit | Rogue Valley Women's Movement
Channel: Stories of Southern Oregon
Date: 22/12/2020

Mary O'Kief's vision of equity involved financial competence and access to credit. Her work with Southern Oregon Women's Access to Credit was fundamental to many women entrepreneurs in the 1980s. SOWAC was the natural progression of O'Kief's work to start up non-profits that would encourage and support women.

Access to credit was a stumbling block for many women in the 1980s, when banks wanted the big ticket loans that would bring in the big interest payments. Women, many managing home, families and jobs wanted smaller loans to start up new businesses and cottage industries. Enter SOWAC, with training programs that taught women how to develop business plans, facilitated mentor relationships between established women in business and entrepreneurs and made microloans to women. There was so much pent up demand that O'Kief says, "the early years were insane."

Mona Kool (now Kool-Harrington) was one of those women who had an idea, a partner in business but no money. Kool and her business partner went through the SOWAC training program, were awarded a loan for Bean Bags and they went into production. The loan let the women ramp up production just in time for the Seattle World Trades Fair that year, where Harry & David picked up their product for a seasonal offering. Later Kool would join the SOWAC teaching team and between the two, O'Kief and Kool influenced hundreds of women startups.

This episode of the Stories of Southern Oregon is made possible in part by a grant from the Oregon Heritage Commission to document second wave feminism in Southern Oregon. Photographs and more information about the Rogue Valley Women's Movement can be found in the University Archives and Special Collections at Southern Oregon University's Hannon Library.

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