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Cathy Pemberton spent more than half of the past year running her bakery entirely on her own. 

Shortly after the pandemic reached the U.S., the number of customers at her Armory Square business, Cathy’s Cookie Kitchen, plummeted. As her bakery’s income began to dry up, Pemberton was forced to lay off all of her employees and single-handedly manage all aspects of her business. 

“It was very exhausting,” she said. “I was doing everything — shopping, delivering, baking, packaging. Plus, I was responding to all the changes that were taking place and trying to decide if I should stay open or close. It was a lot.”

In mid-January, Pemberton received an email from the Syracuse Economic Development Corporation encouraging her to apply for a COVID-19 relief grant to help cover her business’s pandemic-related expenses, including costs associated with her business’s online ordering system and the new packaging needed to individually wrap cookies. 

A few weeks later, she was notified she had been awarded the grant — and she now plans to use the money to offset her lost revenue and pay the two employees she was able to rehire. 

Pemberton’s bakery is one of 39 small businesses in Syracuse awarded a portion of $350,000 in federal funding distributed by the economic development corporation in February. 

The city of Syracuse received over $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in September to address coronavirus-related issues in the city, and the $350,000 is part of that federal funding, said Eric Ennis, the city’s director of business development and the executive director of the economic development corporation. 

The value of the grants ranges from $2,240 to $10,000, according to a press release from Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh’s office. The majority of the grant recipients were owners of small businesses in the restaurant, child care, retail and professional services industries, the release states. 

The city awarded over half of the grants to businesses owned by women and people of color, Walsh said in the release. 

“We really (wanted) to make an emphasis on businesses that are either minority-owned or women-owned and just maybe haven’t had the same level of access to some of these other federal resources,” Ennis said. “(There) was a very intentional effort to make sure that these businesses across the city — especially in low-income neighborhoods — were aware that this funding was available.” 

The Northeast Hawley Development Association Inc., one of the recipients, plans to use the funding for a marketing campaign that will encompass small businesses in Syracuse’s Northside neighborhood, said Dallas Bryson, the association’s small business facilitator. 

Maya Goosmann | Design Editor

In the coming months, the association hopes to highlight the diverse array of local businesses in the neighborhood — including an Ethiopian restaurant and an African dress shop — and provide support to their owners, many of whom are part of marginalized communities, she said. 

The economic development corporation promoted the application materials for these grants through social media and its website and also reached out directly to local business owners through email to inform them about the grants, Ennis said.

To be eligible, an applicant’s stated use for the grant had to directly connect to expenses related to the pandemic, such as the construction of an outdoor dining area, the purchase of personal protective equipment or the establishment of a takeout ordering system, he said.

Jontia Grady-Branch, the owner of an event planning company called Pretty & Pink Party Planning, heard about the grants when they were first announced, but she didn’t think she was eligible for one.

She had paid a web developer to create a website so her business could reach more potential customers, which was an expense she didn’t think would satisfy the grant requirements — but once she learned it was, she quickly applied for it, she said.

In addition to website-related expenses, Grady-Branch plans to use the funding to launch a service called “party in a box,” where she would deliver or ship party supplies right to customers’ homes.

Grady-Branch’s business had to essentially shut down at the start of the pandemic, and though she has begun to see more customers as COVID-19 restrictions have eased over the past few months, she hopes the “party in a box”  service will provide a steady and reliable source of income amid ongoing uncertainty.

“My business is basically social gatherings, parties, events. When you could not gather, I had no business,” Grady-Branch said. “(The grant) will help take the business to a different level as far as, ‘What if this is the new norm? What if things have to close down again?’ It’ll be my saving grace.”

In addition to this $350,000 in grant money, the economic development corporation distributed $150,000 to 23 Syracuse businesses in early December, Ennis said. Because of the “overwhelming response” the city received from applicants during the first round of grants, the economic development corporation rushed to secure more funding for this second disbursement of grants, he said. 

Though the city has now awarded the grant money, Ennis hopes that Syracuse’s economy — and its small businesses — will begin to recover as more city residents get vaccinated.

Like Ennis, Pemberton is already optimistic about the city and her bakery’s future. 

“It’s going to be great, because it reimburses money that I spent that I considered gone,” she said. “Now, it gives me that money back to be able to reinvest in the business.” 

Published on May 3, 2021 at 9:56 pm

Contact Gillian: [email protected]