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Read the story of Milan Tapia's success with her loan from Esperanza
Also: See a slideshow of Dave Valle and the people he's helping in the Dominican Republic
The game had ended. The last fans straggled out past kiosk vendors packing up for the night, and as the lights of the dilapidated baseball stadium shut down, the surrounding neighborhood fell into shadows.
It was 1985, and a young American player named Dave Valle was honing his skills in the Dominican Republic's winter league. Along with his wife, Vicky, and their infant son, Philip, he lived at a hotel in Santo Domingo, the Caribbean nation's capital, and was bused to games.
That night, the bus was late, and Valle, who played for the Seattle Mariners back home, was still in the uniform of his Dominican team, the San Cristóbal Caimanes. He and Vicky waited with the baby. There were always kids around. Adulation was part of the fun, and sometimes part of the burden, of being a ballplayer, especially in the baseball-crazy Dominican Republic.
Valle quickly realized, though, that these kids weren't looking for an autograph. They didn't care about baseball or who he was. They were hungry. They had picked through the garbage, and now workers were hauling it away.
It was painful to watch. Valle, a six-two, well-muscled catcher, was no stranger to pain. You blocked balls in the dirt. You did your best to keep your head and neck attached when players charged home plate. Pain was part of the job. But it was one thing to take it in the chest, quite another to feel it in the heart.
He'd seen poor children before. Now, though, as he looked on, he was aware of the soft weight of his own swaddled son in his arms. The miracle of seeing him born had reinforced his faith and changed how he saw the world. What if it were my son who was so hungry and desperate? he thought.
One of the kiosk vendors sold fried chicken and potatoes. The Valles told her to cook up whatever she had left and feed the children.
At first, it felt good to help. But as they reflected on the incident, they knew they were kidding themselves if they thought they'd made any difference. "We satisfied their hunger for the moment," Vicky said. "In a few more hours, those kids are going to be hungry again." The couple made a pact: If they were ever in a position to do something more, they would.
Valle slept off the encounter and went back to work the next day. When you're 25 years old and trying to stay in the big leagues, your focus is on how to hit a slider down and away. Six years later, Valle was a veteran player when fortune shone on him with a lucrative three-year deal.
"Now it's time," Vicky said.
"Time for what?" he asked.
"To help those kids," she said. "Like we promised."
The Game Plan
Last November, I met with Valle in the Dominican Republic to see the results of that promise, a nonprofit he and Vicky established in 1995 with $30,000 of their own savings. Esperanza, which means "hope" in Spanish, is a microcredit agency, offering short-term, low-interest loans starting at about $150 to help extremely poor people get started in business.
Although microcredit banking has been around since the 1970s, Esperanza added other elements, creating a school, a dozen computer training centers, a member-funded health care plan, a water treatment system, and a home improvement initiative. It has also spearheaded the construction of five baseball fields that would be the envy of many affluent communities in America, fitting the sport into its broader goal of community development.
We started our tour in Santo Domingo--Valle, son Philip, now 23, and Esperanza's executive director, Carlos Pimentel-and drove north over a mountain range soaring 9,000 feet, dense with thick, lush jungle.
At a glance, a visitor could be lulled into thinking that all is well in the Dominican Republic. In addition to having enchanting scenery, the country has recently experienced between 7 and 10 percent in annual growth. Modern highways sport an astonishing number of SUVs. New real estate and tourism districts, such as Cap Cana on the east coast, are positively opulent, and indeed, even the pastel colors on many shanties balanced on hillsides suggest more cheer than perhaps they should.
But they can't paint over the reality for many Dominicans. Of 9.3 million people, 2 million live on less than $2 a day. Twenty percent of girls become pregnant before they're 19, and illiteracy and crime are pervasive. Despite promising economic progress early in the decade, the nation's gross domestic product plunged 15 percent several years ago. Haiti, which shares the island that Christopher Columbus called Hispaniola when he landed there in 1492, is even worse off.
The desperately poor are, of course, Esperanza's focus--people for whom it is not a credit crunch but a crush, whose only access to capital would be through loan sharks charging usurious interest rates.
Here is how microcredit works: People with ideas for businesses get together and apply as a group for a loan, or what Esperanza calls a bank of hope. Typical ventures include sundries shops, hair salons, and roadside eateries. Members are almost always neighbors, and they pledge responsibility for one another. At twice-monthly repayment meetings, they cover for anyone who may be short, all of which fosters mutual support and obligation. Repayment rates are 98 percent in the Dominican Republic as well as in Haiti, where Esperanza launched in early 2006. Once debts are settled, borrowers negotiate new loans.
As word of Esperanza spread, the pace of lending accelerated. With 20 borrowers when it began lending in 1995, Esperanza has since dispersed almost $15 million through 75,000 loans, including nearly 21,500 active accounts in 2008. It has 2,800 borrowers in Haiti. The organization estimates that at least five people benefit from each loan in the Dominican Republic, and six in Haiti.
"Traditional aid methods, handouts, haven't worked," said Pimentel, a Dominican who previously worked for CARE in Somalia. "People have to take ownership of the process and learn to be responsible. That's the key to our method. We'll give the resources and training, but you need to bring the spirit and responsibility."
Eighty-eight percent of borrowers are women. Usually, the term single-parent household refers to the mother. "Our goal was always to help children," Valle said. "We figured out that in order to do that, we needed to help their mothers."
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