Business owners of color have been especially hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic.
While federal aid has been made available to small businesses, like through the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, some businesses owned by people of color haven’t qualified for the help.
Which prompted the city of Burlington to make aid available specifically for them through the BIPOC Small Business and Non-Profit Relief Grant program. The initiative closed Dec. 18, resulting in the allotment of $180,000 worth of grants to 30 business owners. Every applicant who applied received aid.
The program was propped up by the Burlington City Council and the Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging department in November. The program received $50,000 through the city’s Racial Justice Fund. It also drew on $157,500 raised from Ben & Jerry’s, Vermont Gas, Burton, VSECU, Preservation Trust, and Seventh Generation.
The grant amounts ranged from $2,000 to $7,000 and were meant to help business owners pay their rent, make payroll and make Covid-related improvements to their businesses.
The federal aid programs for businesses required recipients to own brick and mortar stores and that they experience a certain level of losses — a threshold some people of color business owners just missed. Translated materials were also not made available immediately when the competitive programs were launched.
Tyeastia Green, Burlington’s director of racial equity, would not disclose which businesses received the grants. “It takes a lot to ask for help,” Green wrote in an email to VTDigger. “And I don’t want to tokenize them by putting them on display.”
In a report provided by Green detailing the outcome of the program, anonymized statements from recipients expressed how influential the aid was for their business.
“This grant will not only ensure my firm’s survival, but will further my firm’s mission and purpose for the foreseeable future,” one recipient wrote.
Another said, “We always are forgotten — until now. Thank you for seeing us, and knowing that we are here too.”
Green noted that the grants will not carry these businesses through the pandemic. Which is why she pointed to the importance of the city’s eight-point plan which aims to guide a “racially just recovery” for POC-owned businesses.
“There’s still going to be incredible need,” Green said. “$7,000 is helpful, but it will run out before the pandemic is over.”
In an effort to meet the goals laid out in the plan, and to meet the need the city is seeing, Green said her department is going to embark on a food grant program specifically for families of color that have specific dietary needs.
“We have many food shelves here in Vermont, and it’s wonderful that they are able to help families get fed. Here in Burlington, we have families who have different needs that food shelves cannot meet,” Green said.
“Our new food program will provide grants so that BIPOC families and individuals can buy their own culturally appropriate foods,” she added. “We hope to get that going early next year.”
