The Intersect Fund’s first-ever Gourmet Food & Art Expo was a huge success. Get a taste (pun intended) of what went on by having a look at the above video by Will Ferguson.

Don’t tell me you went to a chain-store yesterday!

Shopping small is in this season.

Efforts like“Indie-Shopping” campaigns and Small Business Saturday (that’s today), mark a conscious effort by more Americans to patronize local businesses.

In addition to quality and customer service, economic benefits draw folks into mom-and-pop operations: small businesses keep a larger portion of their dollars in the local economy than their big-box counterparts do.

Lavon Jackson, who co-owns the Somerset clothing boutique Style & Swag with his wife Carol, cites prospect of creating jobs and reinvigorating his local economy as big motivators.

“When you shop small, you get big things,” Jackson said.

To get into the small-shopping swing of things, join the Intersect Fund at one (or both) of our upcoming Holiday Bazaars.

We’ll host one on Tuesday, Dec. 13th and another on Tuesday, Dec. 20th – both at New Brunswick’s Hyatt Regency Hotel. Click on either date to RSVP.

How great would it be if you lived in a community chock full of great artists and superb, gourmet chefs?

Turns out you already do! Middlesex County has scores of talented entrepreneurs whose culinary offerings and great art are sure to please. Now, you can meet more than a dozen of them at the Intersect Fund’s first-ever Gourmet Food & Art Expo in Highland Park.

We’ll host the event from 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 10th at Lotus Studios: 431 Raritan Ave., Highland Park, NJ.

A $10 ticket gets you into the show and buys you more than your money’s worth of delicious food samples.

Here’s a list of the vendors who have signed on:

• Lovely Buns (artisan breads)
• Jam Bejan (Jamaican cuisine)
• TeTe’s (Peruvian fare)
• GoGranola (healthy granola)
• Just Favors by Elaine (succulent chocolates)
• Randi’s Gourmet (elegant biscotti)
• Room for Dessert (gourmet cupcakes)
• Grab ‘Em Snacks (crispy plantains chips)
• The Well Dressed Nut (spiced pecans)
• Taking Tea in Style (unique teas)
• Jams by Kim (indulgent jam)
• Frank’s Pickled Peppers (spicy preserves)
• Sweet Spice & Honey(sweet breads)
• Romarsi (pesto go go)
• Missouri (inspiring photography)
• Janice (paintings)
• Keepsakes by Faith (greeting cards and prints)

What are you waiting for? Buy your ticket today!

Still unconvinced?

Consider these 5 reasons why you should attend our Gourmet Food & Art Expo:

1. More Bang for your Buck

   Where can you get a meal (a good meal) for less than $10 in this area?

   It’s not easy. At our Expo, you’ll have your fill not only of great food, but a wide variety of it. If you’ve been to Intersect Fund events before, you know how talented our food vendors are. In addition to past favorites, we’ve invited a slew of new vendors into the mix.

2. You’ll Support the Local Economy

   Each of the vendors you’ll meet are the owners of local businesses.

   Many even source their ingredients from New Jersey farms. Why not dedicate more of your food dollars toward Central Jersey businesses? Coming to the Expo will get you lots of free samples, but we bet you’ll be calling these vendors up months after the event to seek out their great products.

3. You’ll come up with great Thanksgiving Ideas

   What do you normally eat on Thanksgiving? Turkey? Mashed potatoes? Cranberry sauce? Boring! Wake me up when it’s over!

   How about crispy plantains, carrot & ginger jam, lusty loaves of artisan bread and exquisite, artisan teas to keep you awake during the ride home? Our vendors will have great Thanksgiving treats for sale. Your guests (or hosts) will thank you for picking them up.

4. You’ll Meet New People

   One of the keys to a healthy life is being part of a strong, tight-knit community.

   At the Expo, you’ll meet entrepreneurs who give of themselves through their work and dozens of fellow attendees who care about quality food and local businesses. This is a strong, caring, buy-local movement. It’s a community you want to join.

5. You’ll have a Great Time

   Food, music, great vendors, great people – Intersect Fund events are always a blast. They leave you with a good taste in your mouth and a warm feeling in your heart.

   Why not treat yourself (or your whole family) to a nice night out at the Expo? You’ll be glad you did.

   After all, who deserves it more than you?

Intersect Fund client Gretchen Campbell mans her table at the Rutgers Bookstore Saturday.

Thousands of fans cheered the Rutgers football team as it squeaked out a one-point win against Navy on Saturday.

At least a few of these fans cheered their team with the help of Scarlet Knight-themed flags that Intersect Fund client Gretchen Campbell sold from a table that day at the Rutgers Bookstore in New Brunswick. Manning her table for four hours before the game, Campbell sold her unique flags along with large pillows embroidered with Rutgers’ name and logo.

It’s anyone’s guess whether Campbell’s products – which she sold through her business, DeRiCheek – are what gave Rutgers the extra edge it needed to prevail on Saturday. What’s clear, though, is that Campbell and her Scarlet spirit are here to stay.

The weekend forecast calls for clear skies and summery weather: perfect conditions for an awesome Intersect Market vendor fair!

Join us this Saturday, September 17th to enjoy live music, cultural dance performances, face painting, free children’s games and activities, interactive kickboxing and karate demonstrations and a whole lot more.

Each time you buy from a market vendor that day, you’ll get a raffle ticket you can use to enter our drawing for lots of great prizes!

The Market will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. this Saturday, September 17th at:

Sacred Heart Church
56 Throop Avenue
New Brunswick, NJ

At events like our Entrepreneur Showcase and Holiday Bazaar, our clients routinely earn $1,000 in sales per hour.

Now, we are launching our Mobile Marketplace, an unprecedented initiative to revitalize Central New Jersey’s business landscape.

We’re talking 12 Showcases per year throughout greater New Brunswick, a buy-local campaign, and getting our clients online and in local stores.

This is going to be big, but we need your help to make it happen.

Please give to the Intersect Fund’s Mobile Marketplace program. Every dollar helps, and — here’s the best part —  the Catholic Campaign for Human Development will match each of your dollars one for one, up to $35,000.

Small businesses are engines of economic recovery. Help us guide them toward a new, prosperous day.

Thank you for your help!

P.S.: If you donate online, make a note in the “Additional Comments” section that you would like to direct your donation to the Mobile Marketplace.

Student representatives work in break out groups to develop a vision for collaboration

Last weekend, the Intersect Fund hosted the first-ever gathering of student-run microenterprise programs in the nation.  Over the last two months, with the help of FIELD, we two-day agenda to share emerging best practices and experiences — and perhaps even develop a vision for collaboration.  We even got Intersect Fund clients Sam Johnson and Pearl Thompson to do the catering.  In attendance were:

• Bentley Microcredit Initiative
• Big Red Microcapital (Cornell)
• Capital Good Fund (Brown)
• Duke Microfinance Leadership Initiative
• Elmseed Enterprise Fund (Yale)
• Lehigh Microfinance Club
• The Intersect Fund (Rutgers)

What an incredible two days it was.  Having this much brainpower in the room allowed us to talk shop and get advice from others who had experienced much of the same things we have.  The number of different approaches, products, and services was fascinating — from green credit builder loans to partnerships with credit unions — especially given how young most of the programs are.

Hours before we adjourned, the consensus in the room was that we should form some sort of alliance that would allow for distributed costs for resources (i.e. Credit Builders Alliance, MicroTest) and sharing of best practices.

I left the conference energized with new ideas and great hope about the awareness we can bring to the industry and the magnitude of what we can accomplish together.