Shamica Evans owns a flourishing business in central Texas.
But as well as launching a successful business, she says she’s also focused on giving back to her community.
The pandemic saw millions of Americans struggle financially. Many lost their jobs, homes and sometimes both. Small businesses buckled as large corporations greedily snatched up billions of dollars in PPP loans.
Now it’s down to businesses such as Evans’ Waffle Chic, to help the community get back on its feet.
“That right there is the most valuable thing I can give through my business, the connection. Connecting with one another and showing each other unconditional love and when you eat my food, you’ll taste that,” she tells KXXV News.
Despite Black women being the fastest-growing demographic of entrepreneurs — they are still struggling to catch up with their white counterparts. The system is heavily stacked against the,
“The bottom line, for a lot of historical reasons that are unfortunate and desperately need to be addressed, is that they haven’t really had an equal shot as everyone else along the way,” Evans explains.
American Express found that men are handed the majority of funding when it comes to capital ventures. Woman-founded businesses receive just 2% of funding.
“Typically if you can differentiate your product and create a customer base for it, you have a very good opportunity to be successful. That’s the norm. The difficulty we found was the pandemic made that very hard,” she says of running her chicken and waffles business. “It’s also difficult if you don’t have enough capital to sustain yourself through that so the combination of both made it harder to maintain,” Perryman said.
“Being apart of those chambers helped me have the ability to grow my business. Being a single woman, a single Black woman, it has its trials but as long as you keep going forward and not accepting defeat, anything is possible.”
And Evans continues to do her part.
“I employ a lot of young African American women because I want to give them the ability to learn and grow and understand what it is to be an entrepreneur.”
