By BARBARA GREEN
editor@bowienewsonline.com
The Bowie Economic Development Coalition Team is launching the COVID-19 Emergency Grant Program providing assistance to local businesses suffering from financial impacts of the pandemic.
The team is composed of the Bowie Economic Development Corporation and the Bowie 4B Sales Tax Corporation. The purpose of the program is to retain local jobs that have been impacted by COVID-19 mitigation efforts and to serve as a bridge until further local, state or federal funding is available to businesses.
Janis Crawley, executive director of the BEDC, said the focus is on smaller companies and sole proprietors who have not received funding from the Small Business Administration disaster programs such as the paycheck protection program or economic injury disaster loan.
“The mom and pop places are hard-hit. There also may be those who have 10-15 employees who did not make the first cut in the PPP or other SBA programs, they need help. Then you have the one-person shop, say a hair dresser. Some didn’t know or did not apply to SBA for whatever reason. Most of our restaurants were assisted and many stayed open for take-out, but retail is going to suffer unless there is some assistance,” explained Crawley.
Both economic sales tax corporations allocated $50,000 each for a total of $100,000 to be used for local businesses to receive assistance not to exceed $2,500 per applicant.

Read the full story in the mid-week Bowie News.