Resiliency team launches to help St. Petersburg’s small businesses

The St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce presents: Coronavirus Impact Insights.

On this episode, Kim Vogel, St. Petersburg Greenhouse manager for the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce, and Jocelyn Howard, Grow Smarter St. Petersburg manager, join Chris Steinocher, CEO of the Chamber, and Joe Hamilton, publisher of the St. Pete Catalyst, to talk about the Business Resiliency Team developed in a partnership between their organizations.

The team is made up of “navigators,” who will establish relationships with business owners and key community leaders, to ensure the long-term survival of the city’s small business community.

“Small businesses need help to know what aid to apply for, to know what resources are out there in the community. The goal of this team is to bring the businesses to stability,” Howard said.

To determine what stability will look like, Grow Smarter conducted an impact study, Vogel said.

“The impact study gave us the ability to put up red flags of businesses that were struggling to meet stability metrics. We believe we’re pinpointing some of those businesses right now, that had to close right away …  and asking what are the things we can do based on our stability metrics to bring them back, to provide that opportunity for stability,” Vogel said.

St. Petersburg is the only city Steinocher knows of that has established a Business Resiliency Team. Click here for a list of FAQ’s with additional information.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. Small Business Administration has postponed National Small Business Week, but the Greenhouse has decided to move forward with a virtual Small Business Week in St. Petersburg.

“We’re basing it around the themes of help and hope, and sharing stories of hope and resiliency that we’re all hearing right now,” Vogel said. “Even though it won’t feel like as big a celebration as we would hope, we do know that we have the ability to celebrate things in St. Pete and we want to continue to show gratitude for our small businesses and how they continue to hang in there as much as they possibly can.”

Resources

Get help or volunteer to help the Business Resiliency Team https://growsmarterstpete.com/brt/