MEMPHIS, Tennessee —
While some struggling businesses in Shelby County wait for help from the federal government, there’s another resource providing a lifeline.
The Economic Development Growth Engine of Memphis and Shelby County, also known as EDGE, has created the Need Grant program. It’s called the Neighborhood Emergency Economic Development (NEED) Grant Program. EDGE is giving out grants between $5,000 and $10,000 to locally small businesses temporarily closed or still open and hanging on.
“These companies are facing tremendous hurdles. They have bills to pay and very little if any income. So the grant is a tool to help them transition so when the economy reopens they are still there,” said Reid Dulberger, President and CEO of Economic Development Growth Engine for Memphis and Shelby County.
Dulberger says there are still plenty of funds available to local small businesses. Grants of up to $10,000 will be made to businesses located in distressed neighborhoods throughout the City of Memphis (areas like Binghampton, Frayser, Orange Mound, Whitehaven, and others) with less than $1 million in revenue that have experienced at least a 25% loss in revenue as a result of COVID-19.
Dulberger says they’ve had about 150 inquiries so far. 20 to 30 applications have been submitted. With a million dollars to work with, EDGE is hoping more business owners will apply.
Dru’s Bar is among the first dozen of businesses that will go before the EDGE finance committee virtually Friday. They’ve been closed since the end of March but just started curbside pickup to offset the losses.
“We’ve been basically piecing small bits of money together where we could from a personal loan from a friend to raising money on a Go Fund Me,” said Tami Montgomery, Owner of Dru’s Bar.
Montgomery says the extra money will help get them through this uneasy time.
“$5,000 these days is like somebody handing you a million. That’s a couple of weeks of payroll. That’s the supplies to get me through the next two months,” Montgomery explained.
For more information and to see if your business qualifies, click here.