Alexandra Kachka looks with pride at the diploma her older son Greg just received from Cleveland State University.

That valuable piece of paper was earned, in part, with financial aid the family received from the Hebrew Free Loan Association (HFLA). Each month for the past four years, Alexandra Kachka has written a check to HFLA to pay off college loans for her sons, Vlad and Greg.

Kachka, a bookkeeper now working for a temporary employment agency, says the HFLA assistance has “been an invaluable help” in enabling her sons to acquire a college education.

“When you earn a modest income, any helping hand, like the HFLA, makes a big difference,” says the

Mayfield Heights resident. “Greg now has a degree in engineering, and my youngerson Vlad is a junior at Ohio State University. They are both very good students, and I am proud that I can work so hard to

provide them with a good education. Making sure they have a future as professionals is my best investment.”

Along with assistance from HFLA, both Greg and Vlad Kachka took out loans from the Cleveland scholarship Program.

Although the Kachka family knew how to access HFLA, the 103-year-old association is still one of the best-kept secrets for college loans. As HFLA’s name implies, all loans are interest-free. Yet, currently only 100 loans are being issued to college students.

“I’m amazed that more students are not taking advantage of our loans,” notes HFLA’s executive director, Rabbi Susan Stone. Here’s how the system works: HFLA allows students to have a maximum

loan of $5,000, but that money is not distributed all at once. The first loan could be up to $2,500 and the second loan up to $2,500. The $50 repayment a month begins one month after the loan is made.

“Let’s assume that a student has taken two loans over two years,” says Stone. “The next year he comes to us, he will have paid off $1,200. So we can make him a third loan for $1,200. We don’t give him a larger sum of money because we don’t want to put the student more heavily in debt.”

Once a student applies for a loan, there is a four-tosix week turnaround. “People can come to us in the middle of the year and ask for a loan,” says Stone. “We operate 12 months a year.”

Source: Cleveland Jewish News