THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 3, 1995 TAG: 9505030470
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MELFA LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
What do you do with a $500,000 check that's 3 feet long, made of styrofoam and signed by a top official of the U.S. Department of Agriculture?
Cash it.
That's just what the people at the Virginia Eastern Shore Economic Empowerment and Housing Corp. did Tuesday after Dayton Watkins - acting administrator of the USDA Department of Rural Economic and Community Development - signed the king-sized grant check.
``If you have an doubt as to whether I have the power to sign this, you'll know when you go to your local bank,'' Watkins joked.
The $500,000 will be used to finance small and emerging businesses on the Eastern Shore, and to train those ``micro-enterprise'' owners in sound business practices.
Accomack and Northampton counties became eligible for the grant after being named an enterprise community by President Clinton in December 1994.
With the designation came a promise of $3 million in grants for economic development. But being an enterprise community also put the Eastern Shore counties in a favorable position for a wide range of unrelated funding from other USDA programs.
``You can access these earmarked funds as quickly as you can complete the applications and submit them,'' Watkins said.
No problem. The people at the new empowerment corporation have gotten good at grant applications. In the past few years they have scooped more than $6 million in state and federal money for local housing and economic development projects.
Beth Williams, project director in the micro-enterprise division of the nonprofit group, took the lead on this particular grant application. Williams and Ava McMillan have developed a two-pronged approach for creating new jobs.
The first step, Williams said, is training. They have organized a series of classes for those who want to start businesses with five or fewer employees. Many of the hopeful entrepreneurs have little business experience and are underemployed or unemployed. They will be offered a working knowledge of budgeting, cash-flow projections, marketing and business plans.
After the training, the micro-enterprisers become part of a ``borrowing group.'' Each group, which will have from four to 10 members, is extended a $10,000 line of credit to finance individual businesses. This limit can be increased to $20,000 if the group has a good history of repayment.
McMillan said the group is already training people who want to open businesses in ethnic retail, manufacturing, construction and crafts.
Another option in the micro-enterprise program is for employee-owned businesses. In this plan, each participant could borrow up to $5,000 to buy into the business.
``We're putting tools in people's hands,'' said Williams. by CNB