The MicroCredit Program celebrated one year of success and raised nearly $10,000 at their Second Annual Dum Spiro Fundraiser on Nov. 5, 2008.

“The MicroCredit Program was only introduced at St. Thomas about a year ago, but we have grown and transformed so much,” said MicroCredit President Thomas Mendez. “People were impressed with our ambitious goals last year, but they were even more impressed to see that we were able to dispatch loans to beneficiaries all over the world. We have proof that the program is working because all of our beneficiaries are paying back their loans. At Dum Spiro, we presented a video that showed footage of some of the people who we are helping, and our guests found the video very moving.”

The MicroCredit Program is a student-operated non-profit organization which assists micro entrepreneurs living below the poverty threshold to start income generating businesses. The program seeks to promote freedom, fairness and democracy around the world by endorsing basic principles of microentrepreneurship, self-employment, property rights, and wealth accumulation, while integrating the Catholic values of the University of St. Thomas.

The event featured a silent auction where guests could bid on goods ranging from jewelry and original artwork by UST alumni to crafts handmade by MicroCredit beneficiaries. The auction also offered a honey basket from Tropical Honey, a honey corporation near Petac, Mexico which is currently collaborating with the MicroCredit Program to provide additional opportunities to local honey producers.

Mendez expressed his gratitude to the UST community for supporting the MicroCredit Program’s mission.

“Receiving such overwhelming support from the campus and from the Houston community has been very encouraging and serves as further motivation for us to continue in our pursuit to eradicate poverty,” Mendez said.

For more information, please visit the MicroCredit Web Page.