Goodwin kicks off small business grant program

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin says small businesses are in need of assistance because of the ongoing pandemic and she believes a new city grant program can help them.

Goodwin announced the grant program Monday on the East End.

Goodwin along with city council members, Charleston Area Alliance, Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Charleston Main Streets, launched the program in a Monday morning news conference.

“Small businesses may be awarded a maximum of $5,000. They have to do a 25% match,” Goodwin said. “Project work has to be started within six months of the grant award and finished within the first year,”

Application here

The city plans to give out a total of $250,000 in three application periods. The first one begins later this week, Oct. 1. The second round Dec. 1 and then a third round next spring. City council approved the program last week.

Goodwin said she expects a number of projects to be proposed by small businesses.

“Things like broadband connectivity, marketing, advertising, demolition project, construction or repair of exterior like windows, doors and ramps,” Goodwin said.

The grant program is being funded by part of the settlement the city received from the settlement connected to the 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill on the Elk River that caused a drinking water emergency.

Goodwin said it’s time to invest locally.

“Even more into our small businesses and our people because, guess what? The ship is turning. People used to say to me, ‘We need to be like x,.y, z city.’ No we dont’. We need to be who we are,” Goodwin said. “We need to invest and we need to enhance who we are but we have a really, really good product here in Charleston, West Virginia.”

Goodwin said more information is available at charlestonwv.gov. She said those interested can also call her office at 304-348-8174. The program is being operated out of the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Community Development.