By Keith Whitcomb Jr. Staff Writer
A grant program said to have saved many a small business from closure has another $1 million to give.
Tyler Jokinen, statewide coordinator for the Economic Micro Business Recovery Assistance for the COVID-19 Epidemic program said Friday that the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee allocated $1 million in remaining CARES Act funds to the program on Thursday.
“We never expected it, but we knew they had extra CARES Act funding that they were having a hard time getting out the door,” said Jokinen. “We went through the initial funds much faster than we expected. From the time we opened the application portal to the time we made the final payment was 60 days. We expected that to be going into November for the first round and we finished that up in October.”
Through the program, qualifying small businesses could apply for grants of between $2,500 and $5,000 to pay for anything from their rent to websites that would allow them to do business online. Applicants went through their local community action groups and were also put into contact with businesses advisors who helped them figure out how to best apply the funds.
Jokinen works for BROC Community Action and spearheaded the creation of the EMBRACE program. He said a website has been created for small business owners to apply through, mbdp.org.
Nora DeMuth owns The Flower Basket in Hardwick and was the recipient of a $5,000 grant, which she’ll use for a walk-in cooler to help manage her perishable inventory.
“We really focus on locally sourced material, we try to include local flowers in every arrangement,” she said Friday.
The Flower Basket was founded 47 years ago by Jane John, according to DeMuth. It was sold nine years ago, then in July of last year was bought by DeMuth. The business sells seeds and gardening supplies, and hence was considered an essential business during the early months of the pandemic and so wasn’t required to cease in-person operations, however DeMuth said she limited floor traffic anyway to keep people safe.
“Also, people just didn’t come by,” she said. “They really stopped shopping in the store quite a bit in the spring and summer, so that really hit us.”
DeMuth said she went through Northeast Kingdom Community Action, which according to Jokinen administered $200,000 in grants to small businesses in its region.
DeMuth said the grant is why she’ll be able to keep her retail space open through the winter, hopefully. The pandemic has left her and other small business owners feeling like they’re on a roller coaster.
“It’s been that way this year, often feeling like that plummet is the last plummet and then something comes at the bottom and lifts you up again, and the EMBRACE grant is one of those,” she said. “I was really wondering in the summer what the shop would look like, wondering if I’m going to have to let go of my employees, if I’m going to bring it down to one day a week.”
She said her business didn’t qualify for many of the state and federal assistance programs being offered.
Jokinen, in his report to the Legislature on the first round of funding, said 206 grants were awarded statewide to micro businesses for a total of $1,011,879. Of those who got awards, 62% said it kept them from going out of business. It also helped many demographics hardest hit by the pandemic. Women and minorities made up 60.7% of applicants, 35% had children at home, 83.8% relied on self-employment for home expenses, 48.5% of the businesses had one employee and 97% had not received any other form of pandemic aid.
He said BROC Community Action moved $207,445 of EMBRACE funds, the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity held put out $228,000, and Southeastern Vermont Community Action worked with $144,000.
Capstone Community Action had the highest amount, with $232,397 in grants going out, according to Jokinen.
“I think it’s terrific that we’ve been so successful at helping very small business, micro business, many of whom are so small they really aren’t eligible for any of the federal programs,” said Sue Minter, executive director of Capstone.
She said the economy is teetering right now, and efforts like EMBRACE will be key to keeping businesses open until things improve.
Disclosure: Publisher and Editor Steven Pappas is chairman of the board of directors of Capstone Community Action in Barre.
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