And as if the Dirks' lives weren't challenging enough, they suffered a personal tragedy in March 2021. Their child, a girl named Mavery Elyn, was born without a heartbeat. She was revived after 38 minutes, but sadly passed away four days later.

Their heartbreak ultimately did not stop them from keeping their doors open at Essence Coffee Roasters, however. After a later round of PPP funding was approved, Dirks was able to use his gross 2020 income to meet the application requirement, and obtained a $14,097 PPP loan from Peninsula Credit Union ($266 million, Shelton, Wash.) in June 2021.

"If I hadn't known [those loan funds] were coming, we'd be closed by now. We'd be done," Dirks said.

Essence Coffee Roasters was one of many local businesses that received PPP relief from Peninsula, and for the credit union, the program meant making a difference in its community as well as exploring new opportunities to offer financial services to local businesses.

Jim Morrell

Prior to the pandemic, developing a business services program wasn't a top priority for Peninsula, according to President/CEO Jim Morrell and Vice President of Lending Chris Kirkley. The five-branch federal credit union serving Washington State's Kitsap, Mason, Jefferson, Clallam and Grays Harbor counties is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and has primarily focused on serving consumers living on what Morrell called "household survival budgets."

"We knew there was a need. Business lending was something we wanted to get into, but there was a lot of trepidation as well as 'not knowing what you don't know,'" Kirkley said. "And there's a vast difference between consumer underwriting and the comfort level there, and moving into business lending."

Chris Kirkley

When the state of Washington first shut down on March 17, 2020, Peninsula's board held a meeting that evening, where it was decided that the credit union would do anything it could to support its communities. That included offering PPP loans soon after the program launched in April.

Kirkley noted that aside from helping the community's small businesses, the motivation behind offering PPP loans included the chance to earn noninterest income at a time when the financial future of the credit union's existing consumer borrowers was highly uncertain.

Peninsula connected with PPP loan applicants by reaching out to existing members who owned businesses and raising awareness through its five local chambers of commerce, which included speaking on a podcast hosted by one of the chambers. Then, the real work began.

"The first couple of nights was Chris and I burning the midnight oil ourselves and entering applications directly into the SBA's platform," Morrell recalled.

Because the program was so new, a lot of manual data entry was required; however, Peninsula's core system provider, Fiserv, soon eased the process by implementing functionality that allowed for some automation, the executives said. They also enlisted the help of several employees from the credit union's lending team of 11 to process the PPP loans.

Peninsula's existing partnerships also helped to alleviate the pain points of PPP, including one with Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.), who stepped in when the credit union had trouble getting in contact with the SBA's Washington, D.C. office, and one with the Northwest Credit Union Association, which provided a number PPP resources such as legal ­expertise and connections to other credit unions making PPP loans in the region.

The first round of PPP funding ran out quickly, but as a CDFI, Peninsula was able to secure more funds during a later round that launched in January 2021. In total, the credit union funded just short of $5.9 million in PPP loans, which supported 810 jobs at a variety of businesses including restaurants, salons, painting and construction companies, fishermen, real estate agents, doctors, lawyers and trucking companies. Three of its five chamber of commerce partners, which previously relied on funds from dues-paying members, even got a piece of the credit union's PPP fund pie. The average loan size was $43,474, and of the approximately 160 applications Peninsula received, it was able to fund 135. Of note, 59 of the businesses that obtained a PPP loan from Peninsula were women- or minority-owned.

Essence Coffee Roasters was one of the businesses that benefited from the CDFI-specific funding round earlier this year. Dirks explained that he originally applied for a PPP loan through Kitsap Bank of Port Orchard, Wash. – his business' primary financial institution – as well as through a fintech lender he found online, but hit a snag when Kitsap Bank couldn't continue processing his loan because a loan was also being processed in his name through the fintech. The fintech had to cancel Dirks' loan before Kitsap Bank could move forward, but he couldn't get a hold of anyone at the fintech. Kitsap Bank then ran out of PPP money.

The bank referred Dirks to several CDFIs, including Peninsula. He reached Kirkley, who connected him with the fintech's vice president of lending. Within two days, the fintech had released his loan application and his PPP loan with Peninsula was approved.

Today, Essence Coffee Roasters is open 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, has five employees, and is expanding its wholesale program, with Dirks' coffee being served at several local restaurants and cafes and being placed into some high-end grocery stores.

"Chris Kirkley over at Peninsula was by far the most helpful individual I've ever met when it comes to helping somebody get a business loan," Dirks said. "It felt like he dropped everything he had on his plate and focused on getting me that money."

Dirks is also one of Peninsula's PPP loan recipients who expressed interest in expanding his banking relationship with the credit union. He said he would love to make Peninsula his primary financial institution, but since the nearest branch is located 40 miles from his business, which must make frequent cash deposits, it isn't currently feasible.

Other PPP loan recipients indicated to Peninsula that they were interested in obtaining membership once the credit union establishes a full-service program for business members. The path to that potential future program began in September 2021, when Peninsula's board met with CU Business Group, the largest business services CUSO, to begin learning more about serving businesses and how CUBG can help provide resources.

"The board and management have had business lending and services on their horizon for a while, and in 2020, having experienced the first round of PPP lending, the board shifted that onto our radar," Morrell said. "Last month, we began that due diligence process in earnest. Because this is a new area for us, we wanted to ensure the board was well-informed, so CUBG provided some background information and education on what business lending is in the credit union environment, the benefits, the pros and the cons."

Kirkley said Peninsula may consider a tiered approach, starting with participation loans, then doing loans themselves and later moving onto additional services for business members. He added that the PPP experience helped eliminate some of that aforementioned trepidation around business services.

"It helped us see that there was a path forward," he said. "Other credit unions that are our size and smaller, and plenty that are larger, are assisting in business lending, and there's certainly a need in our communities that might be overlooked by other organizations. We saw that we could be a player, and we may not have complete knowledge right now, so [we asked], how can we get there?"