What a boost can do.(Business)

Byline: Sherry Robinson TRIBUNE BUSINESS EDITOR

For small-scale entrepreneurs lackinga critical ingredient for success money Accion New Mexico is there to help

Business becoming a grind? Forgotten why you wanted to be in business?

There's nothing like a little time with new entrepreneurs to regain your perspective. Artist Goldie Garcia, CPR trainer John La Volpa and restaurateur Dagmar Mondragon have little in common except their enthusiasm and their micro-loans from Accion New Mexico, a private, nonprofit organization that helps tiny businesses.

A recent tour of Accion's success stories was better than a motivational speaker.

All that glitters

If you're Goldie Garcia, business really is fun.

Her plant is a second-floor, Downtown studio where a rainbow-colored bead curtain separates completed products from work in progress. Her raw materials: bottle caps, glitter, pictures of saints, broken glass, ribbon, found objects, second-hand high heels. Her wares: jewelry, shrines, compositions.

"I wanted to do something that reflected on Latino culture," she says. "I saw our culture dying out as we assimilated. I wanted something to prove we are here."

She also wanted a job. Returning home nine years ago with a Harvard degree, Garcia heard the old "over-qualified" refrain too many times and decided to work for herself. She began making folk-art crosses for cars and soon added the bottle-cap jewelry that's become her hallmark.

"You look at glitter, and it takes you …