Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 30, 1994                   TAG: 9408020024
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

MBC GIVES GRANTS TO 3 BUSINESSES

The Farmers Home Administration this week awarded the Rural Enterprise Business Grant to MBC, the eight-year-old community development corporation that serves as an alternative to traditional lenders like banks. The grant money augments $63,000 contributed from the First National Bank of Christiansburg and the National Bank of Blacksburg.

The grant was announced with MBC's decision to loan $30,000 to CELAM Inc., headed by couple Carl and Lori Mitchell, new owners of Thornton's Greenhouses and Snowville Nursery; $25,000 to Timber Frames of Virginia, an 11-year-old Christiansburg company that makes timber frames for buildings; and $25,000 to Polymer Solutions Inc., a Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center-based provider of chemical analysis and material testing.

"This is government and community at its very best, and we thank you very much," said Sandy Bennett, president and general manager of Timber Frames of Virginia, formerly known as Blue Ridge Timber Frames.

Both his company and the Mitchells plan to use the loans as working capital, while Polymer Solutions, founded in 1987 by Virginia Tech graduate James Rancourt, will purchase new equipment.

MBC was set up in 1986 to provide loans to businesses when banks and other financial organizations may be unwilling. It's a good source of "gap financing," said Don Moore, director of the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development.

In the past, it has had a hand in funding construction of the Blacksburg shell building, and in January it loaned $90,000 to TechLab Inc., a biotechnology firm in the corporate research center.

Its money is typically lent out at 4 to 5 percent interest rates to be repaid over two to five years, Moore said.

Raymond Smoot, president of MBC, said the corporation will be seeking contributions from other area financial institutions to allow it to make more loans in the future. With Friday's loans, MBC is currently lent out, and Smoot said he'd like to have a million dollar fund that would enable MBC to greatly expand its efforts.