SEAMAAC: A South Philly Home of Their Own
Overview
SEAMAAC is a refugee-founded nonprofit organization that supports immigrants, refugees, and native-born individuals through community development, education, hunger relief, and health and social services in South Philadelphia.
NFF made a $580,000 acquisition loan to SEAMAAC to acquire its first permanent headquarters after forty years of renting.
For four decades, SEAMAAC has been a beacon of hope for immigrants and refugees seeking to build new lives in Philadelphia. Yet ironically, this organization dedicated to helping others find stability has never had a permanent home of its own.
Founded in 1984 as the Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Association Coalition, SEAMAAC now serves a veritable United Nations of Philadelphians. With a multilingual staff to match the community needs, SEAMAAC can greet its 11,000+ visitors from 77 different countries in over 60 languages! Their programs cover everything from community development and health services to education and making sure no one goes hungry.
Serving a community this large and diverse has come with its share of challenges. During the last 40 years, SEAMAAC has always rented its main office space and has had to rent additional space at extra cost as it has grown to meet community needs. Renting has meant having to deal with fickle landlords and changing property values, and each time they’ve been forced to change location over the years, it’s meant they’ve moved out of reach for a piece of the community they were trying to serve.
So they decided it was time to establish an enduring presence in South Philadelphia.
Thanks to the help of a $580,000 acquisition loan from Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), SEAMAAC is now the proud owner of a building on Snyder Street in South Philadelphia, in the heart of the community they serve.
Owning their own building means that instead of community members having to trek across town for vital services or worry about SEAMAAC moving out of reach, SEAMAAC will always be right around the corner serving them in their own neighborhood.
Join Katya Noreika, Director, Loan Origination; LeNola Potami, Manager, Underwriting; and SEAMAAC staff as they share about SEAMAAC’s programs, the community it serves, and how SEAMAAC’s new home will increase its impact in Philadelphia.
NFF was able to provide financing at a crucial moment in SEAMAAC’s pursuit of a long-term base. SEAMAAC’s first attempt to purchase a property stalled in 2023 due to complex loan requirements from the traditional bank they were working with and tight deadlines from the seller. Months later, a second chance emerged when the seller reopened negotiations. This time, SEAMAAC turned to NFF for its nonprofit-focused, mission-aligned approach to lending.
NFF worked closely with SEAMAAC to understand their goals and overcome the complexities of zoning issues, a fundraising campaign for renovations, and the tight timeline from the seller. Working together, NFF proudly helped secure this facility for SEAMAAC and South Philadelphia’s brighter future.
The space, formerly a dental office, will undergo major renovations in the coming year, transforming from a place that fixed smiles to one that creates them – a vibrant community center available to everyone in the neighborhood.
Hear from Katya Noreika, LeNola Potami, and Thoai Nguyen as they explain how NFF’s relational approach yields tailored, sustainable, community-centered solutions.
Transcripts
SEAMAAC: Rooting Community Support in South Philly
Thoai Nguyen: In the United States, we talk a lot about the history of immigrants and how immigrants have enriched this nation. But the treatment of immigrants who are not from Europe is unacceptable. Our history is so full of amazing stories of families and resiliency in the face of great adversity. So, SEAMAAC’s path is the American story.
Kathy Ortiz: SEAMAAC is a refugee-founded agency that provides support to immigrant, refugee, and native-born individuals through diverse programming such as community development, education, hunger relief, and health and social services.
Thoai Nguyen: If we have a service for them, we do it in-house. If we do not have a service for them, we have an army of partners out there to make sure that that family, that individual, gets exactly what they need.
Christa Loffelman: Community is intrinsic to everything that we do. Our staff are from the community. Our clients are from the community. Our program development is rooted in the community. Our outreach is in the community.
Thoai Nguyen: It's not enough to build stronger communities in Philadelphia for Asians. There are African American families, Latinx families, working class white people living in the same block. We do our work to build stronger communities, regardless of who lives there, because we feel that the only way to uplift an entire community is to uplift an entire community.
Kathy Ortiz: I would say that what makes us unique is our focus on inclusivity and accessibility.
Thoai Nguyen: We hire people not based on their race or ethnicities, but their ability to navigate linguistic and cultural environments. In the last two years, we have served about 5,000 families from 77 different countries of origin in 53 languages. That's just in the health and Social Services department alone.
Aggregated data provided by the Census Bureau tells you that Asian Pacific Islanders are doing really, really well. But when you disaggregate that data, you realize that the newcomers – the refugees, the immigrants who have been here under 20 years – they require a lot of support, including food security. Just because you're in need does not mean that you shouldn't get quality food.
Text on Screen: In addition to its hunger relief work, SEAMAAC partners with other organizations to provide comprehensive health and wellness services.
Christa Loffelman: The Hansjörg Wyss Wellness Center opened in 2021. The vision was to provide a comprehensive healthcare center that not only addressed physical health and wellness, but also the social determinants of health – factors such as whether they have affordable housing, whether they have employment, whether their family feels safe in the neighborhood.
The team at the Wyss Wellness Center, around 90% are foreign born, myself included. Our outreach workers come from different immigrant communities, and they are community leaders for those different populations. And so we really work to ensure that all aspects of health and wellness are provided here in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.
Text on Screen: After 40 years of renting, SEAMAAC purchased its new headquarters building in 2024 with the help of financing from NFF
Katya Noreika: Not only is it wonderful that SEAMAAC has a permanent home amongst its community, but it's meaningful for them to offer their programming at times that are convenient for their community members – the same location week after week, year after year.
LeNola Potami: And the plan is to convert it from its previous use, which was a dental office, into space that they can use for their programming.
Kathy Ortiz: It is in a part of South Philadelphia where the majority of the community members are immigrants and refugees.
Reggie Garrison: It shows a concrete commitment to the community that you're not just renting, but you've set up roots and we’ll be able to provide many more services to many more people.
Thoai Nguyen: We want to make sure that it's not just a SEAMAAC office, but it is a vibrant community center that serves everybody.
Agnes Joseph: As an immigrant myself, I feel like a lot of people did not take my parents seriously when we first moved to America. Not giving us everything that we needed, not being as helpful as they could have been through a lot of situations.
Christa Loffelman: Immigrants and refugees who want the same thing as anyone else. They want safety. They want security. They want economic stability.
Thoai Nguyen: I'm a Vietnamese refugee. And yes, certain parts of my story about my family having to leave our country and resettle here in the United States, is tragic. But we also have amazing stories of resiliency, of discovery, of strength. You know, we don't empower people, what we do is we make the environment that allows people to uplift their voice and have agency in their life, in their self-determination.
Text on Screen: Learn more about SEAMAAC on seamaac.org
Learn more about NFF’s lending, consulting, and nonprofit financial resources on nff.org
NFF & SEAMAAC: Not a Transaction, a Relationship
Katya Noreika: SEAMAAC tailors its programming to meet the unique needs of its communities, and it reminded me of NFF and how we try to do our work in tailoring our financing to meet the unique needs of our clients. For 40 years, SEAMAAC has rented its space. They were at the whim of whatever they could access. So in the summer of 2023, SEAMAAC came to us because they had been working with a bank to acquire a building.
LeNola Potami: This is actually SEAMAAC’s second time trying to acquire this property. The first time they tried to obtain a loan through a traditional bank, the bank fell through and did not close the loan on time. They came to NFF and we were able to close the loan on time and with terms that worked out for them.
Katya Noreika: They were very early on in the process of thinking through the design of the building, the use of the building. They still had some zoning issues that they were working out as we were underwriting. They were, you know, preparing to launch their capital campaign, which was going to help finance some of the renovations. So there was a lot of trust building to make the acquisition loan a little bit earlier than most lenders would be comfortable doing.
Thoai Nguyen: We found a group of people from NFF that really understood our mission, understood what we were trying to do in terms of setting roots in the city of Philadelphia in the most diverse neighborhood of the city. And it had been our lifelong dream to have strong roots in that neighborhood where we do most of our work.
Katya Noreika: Being able to kind of hear where they're at, hear where they were planning to go, and really dig in and understand their plan for getting there, was very helpful. And it took a little bit more time. It was not just about being able to pay us back, but is this really going to benefit your programming? Are you going to be a stronger organization? Are you going to be able to better serve your clients and your communities by acquiring this building?
Text on Screen: Learn more about NFF’s lending, consulting, and nonprofit financial resources on nff.org
Learn more about SEAMAAC on seamaac.org
Learn more about how NFF supports community ownership of assets.
Learn how NFF’s financing supports organizations in education, community improvement, health, homelessness and housing, human services, social justice, workforce development, and youth development. See more examples of financing in action.