May 21, Star Staff
The Napa Valley Community Foundation (NVCF) has started a program to help small businesses that suffered physical losses or economic injury as a result of the October 2017 wildfires.
Grants are now available to Napa County businesses that applied for a disaster loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), but were declined.
The program is a collaboration between the Napa Valley Community Disaster Relief Fund managed by NVCF; the Napa-Sonoma Small Business Development Center, a nonprofit organization that provides expert no-cost advising in English and Spanish to small businesses in the North Bay; and Working Solutions.
Business owners who were ineligible to apply for an SBA disaster loan may also be considered for a grant if they lost property or revenues because of the fires.
“We are excited to be helping small business owners recover in partnership with the Napa-Sonoma SBDC and Working Solutions,” said NVCF President Terence Mulligan.
“Because most of the fire damage to our business community has come in the form of economic losses, and Economic Injury Disaster Loans are still available through the SBA until July, we’ve built this program for business owners who can’t access the federal government’s disaster aid dollars,” he added.
For details call 529-1234 for English and 293-6088 for Spanish.