Sustain Summit Fund Distributed to Summit Businesses
Submitted by Nancy Adams
Summit Downtown, Inc. (SDI) is thrilled to announce that the first round of grants from the Sustain Summit Fund have been distributed to 117 Summit small businesses.
The Sustain Summit Fund is a collaborative effort between SDI, The Summit Foundation and the City of Summit to help local small businesses during this time of unprecedented economic and public health emergency resulting from the COVID-19 epidemic. The fund was created with the hope that these small grants would help with short term business expenses until other State and Federal grants and loans could be obtained. The first $50,000 in donations were generously matched on a 1:1 basis by The Summit Foundation.
The potentially devastating impacts on small businesses are clearly a major concern of the overall Summit community as is evidenced by the generosity with which they have donated to the campaign. The Fund has collected over $330,000 thus far. “We hope the businesses feel the love and support of the Summit community as they donated in generous amounts to help the local businesses they know and love, and by donating have sent along their emotional as well as financial support,” said Nancy Adams, Executive Director of SDI. “I’ve heard from so many businesses who are grateful for the financial help and equally grateful for the love and support they feel from the community.”
A Grant Selection Committee made up of Summit residents determined the parameters for deciding which businesses got grants and at what amounts. This was done using information provided by the businesses in their applications about employee hours and rental expenses.
Mayor Nora Radest, who spearheaded the Sustain Summit effort said, “COVID-19 has been devastating for Summit’s small businesses. These independently owned businesses help give our city the vibrancy and sense of community that we all cherish. It has been heartwarming to see our residents come together to help them survive this health and economic disaster.”
The Sustain Summit Fund is still accepting donations to provide the local small businesses with a second round of much-needed grants. Please show your support for our small business community by donating what you can on the Go Fund Me site. Your contribution is tax deductible to the extent permitted by law; SDI is a 501C3 organization.
