CommunityWorks microloan helps propel home care company to staff of 85

One of James Bennett’s memories from his childhood is of helping his father get up when he fell on the floor as multiple sclerosis slowed down the elder Bennett and impaired his mobility.

“Especially during the summer months, it’d get real hot, and we couldn’t take him outside, because he’d get so worn out and couldn’t move,” Bennett says.

Bennett spent much of his youth helping his mother care for his father and for a sickly grandparent. The extended family rallied and helped with caregiving as well as they could, but the experience left a big impression on Bennett. It showed him that people, especially those who lack the aunts and uncles who helped his family, could have a hard time keeping sick loved ones at home. Bennett never forgot this, even as he was getting on with his life as a Clemson University student and in his professional career in the manufacturing food industry.

This idea came back to him, years later. He was in his mid-30s and had a family, along with more than a decade of experience in business operations. Bennett prayed about his next career step and decided to launch, in July 2011, his own company, Upstate Home Care Solutions.

“I wanted to help folks who needed assistance in their homes,” Bennett says. “I understood there would be a growing need for people to have help at home as the baby boom population grows older.”

Bennett’s goals were to give people nonmedical, in-home assistance, such as personal hygiene, respite care and other services, in a cost-effective way.

“We focus on activities of daily living, bathing, dressing, meals, housekeeping,” he says.

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Faith in the future

Bennett, 39, had the passion and resilience to make this work. For instance, Bennett worked four jobs during the startup’s early years, including weekdays managing his new enterprise, 12-hour weekend shifts at BMW, floor scrubbing at a mall and nighttime janitor work at a dialysis center. He made sure he spent time with his family of four, even it meant bringing his wife and daughters with him when he cleaned buildings at night.

“For a while, you have to grind it out and do what you have to do to make things flow,” Bennett says. “You have to rely on your faith, believe this is going to take off and that this is what God has in store for you, holding on until it comes to fruition.”

Starting out, Bennett used his retirement funds, as he had been saving the maximum amount in his company-sponsored 401(k) retirement plan for more than a decade. He was willing to take the tax penalty.

But there was one hitch in his startup plans: “Marketing and sales is where I lack a little,” Bennett says, adding that he needed additional funding that he was unable to obtain through a bank because of his lack of business history.

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Then Bennett heard about CommunityWorks and its microloans for small businesses, particularly for minority-owned businesses.

Bennett applied for a microloan and received $15,000, which he used to hire a marketing group to develop a brochure, sales plan and strategy. The loan, which he plans to have paid off by the end of this year, was much needed, he says.

“Every year since we’ve been in business, the company has doubled in size,” Bennett says. “We’ve had tremendous growth and now have 85 employees, and we serve the Upstate, including Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson, Prosperity and Blacksburg.”

Gross revenues could top $1 million this year, and future plans could take the business statewide, Bennett says.

Upstate Home Care Solutions’ job growth over the past five years led CommunityWorks to give Bennett an Excellence in Entrepreneurship Economic Impact Award on June 21.

Bennett’s business’s rapid growth exemplifies how people who might not have access to traditional means of capital can succeed and grow their business with help from a microloan, says Archie Johnson, small business lending manager for CommunityWorks.

“It is incredibly rewarding to watch this process from start to finish,” Johnson says.

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Microbusiness Month Award Winners

CommunityWorks gave Excellence in Entrepreneurship awards to seven Upstate entrepreneurs on June 21, 2016, for their success after launching their businesses with help from microloans from CommunityWorks. James Bennett, owner of Upstate Home Care Solutions, received the Economic Impact Award.

What: The economic impact award was for the nonmedical home care agency’s employment growth.