Volunteer Story: Oscar Restrepo

Born in Colombia, Oscar Restrepo has always had a love for community service. He was a volunteer Docent at 9/11 Memorial and Museum, firefighter and Army Reservists in Colombia. He has taught college classes and even started Encuentros de Amigos a community organization where he helped foreigners integrate into the US while preserving their heritage and keeping contact with their families. Since the COVID-19 shutdown, Oscar thought that it was the perfect time to pick back up some extra volunteering and that was when he discovered our call for advisors. 

He was eager to hop on a call and learn more about how Pacific Community Ventures helps small business owners. Oscar understands the struggles business owners face in finding free resources, so he jumped at the chance to lend his skills as a volunteer business advisor. And being bilingual presented even more opportunities for him to help business owners that were in need.

Oscar has been able to bring his passion, career expertise, and knowledge to the business owners he has taken on. His first small business mentee was Pilar Mendoza with a young, family-owned roofing company, Danel Roofing, that was in need of marketing direction to keep their business growing despite the pandemic. Since that relationship has started, Oscar has been able to provide business coaching and marketing expertise. 

Fast forward eight months into the program, and Oscar made room for two more Spanish-speaking business owners: Martha Ramirez, a Hartford-based day care and Kevin Jennings, a successful computer security system company. Both businesses had very different sets of needs, and his desire to help has allowed him to work with these businesses in whatever way he can. 

Oscar shared that “it has been a great experience. Business owners are humble and friendly, that is important to have a good relationship.” We are grateful to have Oscar as one of our advisors.