 And welcome to Senator Sanders' discussion with Vermont Small Businesses. My name is Maya Sutton-Smith, events coordinator for Senator Bernie Sanders. We are so glad to have you with us today to talk about what businesses have been experiencing during the coronavirus pandemic and the new assistance that is available through the American Rescue Plan. If you are joining us via WebEx, you can ask a question by clicking the raise hand button. And for folks on the phone, you can press star three to ask a question. With that out of the way, it is my pleasure to introduce your Senator Bernie Sanders. Maya, thank you very much. Let me thank everybody who is joining us. Let me thank the experts we have from the state of Vermont who I'm going to introduce in a moment. And let me just pick up on Maya's point. The point of today's meeting is to discuss the very serious economic problems small businesses around the state have faced to talk about the federal programs which have attempted to address those crises to make sure that everybody understands how they can access those programs. Of all the programs in the world, they don't mean anything that people can't access it. We're going to hear from some panelists to talk about their experience during the pandemic and how the programs have helped or not helped them. We have Darcy Carter with the Small Business Administration with us. We thank her. Cassie Polimas with Vita. We thank her. And Joan Goldstein with the Commission and Economic Development here in the state of Vermont. Let me just say a few words. Then we're going to get over to our panelists. Let me mention our panelists. We have Sue Betty who is with Bluebird, Bobby Q. in Burlington. We have Mujib Khalik who is with North Country Kettle Bells in Burlington. We have Newell LaSalle who is with Chroma Technology in Bellas Falls. We have Matteo Keelop with the sellers at Jasper Hill in Greensboro. I used to live up near there. We have Vicki Sene with Turtle Island Children's Center in Montpelio. So we're going to hear from those guys in a minute. Let me just say a few words. And that is, we have gone through a hell of a year. It is the worst year in the modern history of this country. You know it all. Half a million more people have died. Many millions have become sick. Hospitals have been overloaded with patients. Millions of people have lost their jobs. We talk about small business estimates out there, one out of four small businesses have shut down, may not reopen. We're talking about kids who have had their education disrupted mental illness because of all the isolation that people are experiencing is on the rise. So it has been a horrible year. And in the midst of all that, the federal government has done what it does. Clearly, I'm not going to be here to tell you that we have done everything that we should, but I suspect, you know, given how the federal government operates, it has done more, I think, than many people would have anticipated that it would. And I think it's fair to say the health care and the economic situation would be a lot, lot worse without the strong intervention of the federal government. And the good news there in terms of the pandemic, we are concerned about these virus mutations and the number of new cases we're seeing in Vermont and around the country. But on the other hand, the very good news is that the death rate is going down on Saturday, just last Saturday, some four million people were vaccinated. That is a lot of people. Generally, I think we're seeing two or three million people vaccinated every day. More people have vaccinated. The death rate should go down and we're beginning to see that. So the hope and the prayer is that we will finally crush this pandemic. We'll get back to normal. And that we will see businesses return and create the jobs that the country needs. Let me very briefly go over some of the programs that over the last year, Congress. As initiated and that is the family's first coronavirus response act. Which provided funding for healthcare and food, but also directly helped employers who provided family and sick leave. Next, we pass the CAS Act, as all of you are familiar with, which created the paycheck protection program, which I know many of you have relied on to help keep your employees employed. And just so Vermont does understand that the PPP has brought in about $1.7 billion to Vermont businesses and nonprofits today. That is a lot of money for a small state. The CAS Act also included funding for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program or EIDL, which included emergency grants of up to $10,000. That helped many Vermont employers like many of you along with the employee retention tax credit. And that was also very helpful. And of course, the missed all that we extended unemployment. And gave a supplement originally of $600. Now it is down to $300, but unemployment benefits will be extended through September. We also passed the December Consolidated Appropriations Act. We passed the second PPP loan program. We passed the Shutted Venue Operators Grant Program. And more recently, we passed the American Rescue Plan, which we'll talk about a little bit today. And that plan provided $1.9 trillion that gave direct payments to about 85% of the population of the United States of America, close to 90% here in Vermont, extended unemployment. It's expanded healthcare programs that extended the Paycheck Protection Program, and I think is one of the expanded the Child Tax Credit, which will lower poverty among children in this country. Expand the nutrition programs, et cetera, et cetera. It was quite a consequential piece of legislation. That the ARP also provides more funding for the Shutted Venue Operators Grant. It creates the new Restaurant Revitalization Fund with $28.6 billion in direct relief to restaurants, which will be extremely helpful here in Vermont. And it extends and improves the Employee Retention Tax Credits, paid sick and family medically of the Paycheck Protection Program, and so forth, and so on. So with that, again, there's so many programs out there that we want to make sure that small businesses in Vermont know what is available to them, that they know how to access these programs. And that's why we have our experts with us and we have our panelists with us as well. And let me also thank today the Main Street Alliance, the Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, the Vermont Businesses with Social Responsibility, and Vermont Employee Ownership Center for helping us put on this event. So with that, let me now go to our panelists who will talk about what's been happening to them over the last year. The help they've received, where they think we need improvements. And let me begin with Betty from the Bluebird BBQ in Burlington. Betty, thanks so much for being with us. Sue Betty, I'm sorry, it's Sue Betty. Sue, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you, Senator Sanders for hosting this event. My name is Sue Betty and I operate Bluebird BBQ in Burlington. I also serve on the Independent Restaurant Coalition's Leadership Group, as well as Vermont Independent Restaurants. I first want to thank you and your team and the entire Vermont delegation for always being accessible, empathetic and committed to doing all you, all that you can to support independent restaurants, our teams and our communities. To quickly recap and focusing on the restaurant industry this past year, our sector's been under restrictive operations in order to best protect our communities. For many restaurants, the restrictions have resulted in significant revenue losses and severe disruption to our ability to continue the employment of our teams and in a very challenging operational environment. I don't know if I can adequately express our current level of stress and exhaustion that's widespread throughout our industry. We know that you and your team put incredible effort and hours and thank you for your work in advancing the small states minimum idle PPP, particularly the revisions to PPP that made this relief useful for our industry. And also for the enhanced UI to support our teams through this crisis. Thank you for most recently supporting the restaurant revitalization fund industry targeted relief that's desperately needed. We have learned directly from the folks drafting this program at the FBA that the current fund is nowhere near enough to meet the need. We've heard commitments that this fund will be resourced and asked that you please do all you can to stay pulsed in on this and make sure the fund is supported so that all restaurants may gain needed resources. Speaking for myself and many Vermont operators is like you to also know that we care deeply about the health and well being of our teams. It's my highest hope that independent restaurants can find alignment and partnership with policy and government to help reshape our model so allows both our teams and our businesses to thrive. We're looking to leadership to help us craft a forward thinking vision for the year ahead and to assist in workforce reentry and workforce development. Our most dire current challenges ensuring immediate access to vaccination for restaurant workers. We're deeply appreciative to Governor Scott and the administration for the excellent leadership provided this past year and for prioritizing vaccination for most vulnerable populations. As we now enter reopening phase we're finding that the majority of our workforce which tends to be younger will not have access to vaccination for weeks. Our teams work in a public environment with unmasked exposure and within food preparation logistics that make consistent distancing and challenge. Right now every week counts and we just ask that user influence to help promote the health and safety of restaurant workers by advocating for vaccination for our sector similar to plans created in other states. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next panelist is Mojib Khalik who is with the North Country Cattle Bells in Burlington. Mojib, thanks a lot for being with us. Thank you for having me and thank you everybody for being on the panel as well. My name is Mojib Khalik. I operate North Country Cattle Bells in Burlington, Vermont, obviously. And I'm a personal trainer, sole proprietor. I have a specialized personal training company and so I'm focusing on one-on-one and small group classes. I've always really just done everything that I can to support my business and running my company. So when I first started that meant doing whatever odd jobs that I had to do. I still had a kitchen job and things like that. And I just kind of funneled all of that money into my company. And so that's that being the theme of me creating this company and getting to the point where I'm supporting it until it's sustainable enough to support itself. That's exactly what I did when the pandemic hit and I came to the point where I couldn't run one-on-one classes or small group in person classes anymore. So I was able to transition a number of clients to virtual training. I had already been creating online programs and things like that. And so I was able to transition to running a portion of my business online and virtually. Other than that, I had to get myself a night job. So I knew that the grocers were having a hard time. When I moved to Burlington, I had taken a job with the Healthy Living grocery store there in South Burlington and used that as a way of just supporting my company until it became sustainable enough that I didn't have to have that job. So when the pandemic hit and I knew that all the shelves were getting ransacked and everything like that, I knew that they needed help. I knew they had a small restocking crew at night and I knew that I could do that night job and still support my day job and support my family during the day. So that's what I fell back on. And at first, you know, I was receiving and still do receive a lot of emails from the SBDC. Steve Denton is a gentleman that works at a Chittenden County and he's there. They're steadily sending out emails almost every day, especially when the pandemic birth hit. They were sending out emails pretty much every day about all of the different programs that were available. And, you know, as a sole proprietor, not having not having employees to have to worry about or anything like that. Again, it's easy enough for me to just fall back on my hunches and do what I need to do to keep myself safe, keep my family safe and provide enough money coming in that I can meet my bills and still be able to grow my business in the time until things kind of open back up. And so at first, I didn't really take advantage of any of the programs that were available. I didn't have the bandwidth with everything that was going on at the time to even process those emails as they were coming in. There were so many different programs that were available. And it was almost just a triage of saying, like, okay, I'm not eligible for that one. I may be eligible for that one. But let me just keep on doing what I need to do to stay healthy and to keep money coming in. And so I was reached out to directly from the CDOEO, which is another company, another organization in Burlington about the Embrace Grant. And it was a $5,000 grant maximum. And again, I had already been building online programs, so I knew exactly how I could use that money. And so I wrote the grant and they awarded me that grant and then I just ran with that. And then I was later in the summertime awarded the Burlington BIPOC grant, which was a grant that the city of Burlington put out. And I was awarded the full $7,000 for that. And again, I knew exactly how I would use it. I already knew what monies that I had allotted to building my programs. I knew what else I was working to build up. And so when they offered it to me, I was able to just take it and put it immediately towards my planning that was already in process. And so, you know, I held the night job until the company got sustainable again. I opened up doors again in July. And since then, I've just been steadily working to build my client base back up. So for me, I'm a bit of an anomaly, I think, on this panel because I took advantage of programs that were directly presented to me. But other than that, I saw my job as being able to provide as much as I could for myself with the resources that already had access to understanding that. You know, like I said, I've always been able to fall back on my own personal resources to be able to build my company up. And that was one of the things that I spoke to with Erica early is that I have the mental fortitude and the wherewithal to be able to understand how to go and get what I need to get. And from speaking with colleagues and people that had to shudder their businesses, it's a lot. As you know, as you mentioned right off the bat with the conversation, there's so much weight on our shoulders with what's going on right now that it. We can't not acknowledge the fact that we still have to emotionally process all of this baggage. We have to wake up every day and see the numbers climb. We especially in the early pandemic, we saw the panic that was happening because we didn't know what was going to happen as we saw the numbers climbing in Vermont. We didn't know when we were going to open the open the website and see that is a thousand cases now today in Vermont. Luckily, they we flattened the curve fast. So steadily rose pretty with pretty low numbers. But at the same time, it was scary, you know, scary to get back out there. So that's the last thing that I'll say there. And thank you for giving me a little bit of time. Well, thank you very much. Mojib. Let's go to new all the cell was with chroma technology done a little bit of those falls. Thank you, Senator for hosting this and for all the work you do on the behalf of the state of Vermont and the country overall and supporting a progressive agenda. I'm new cell I'm the CEO of chroma technology we're based in bellows falls were 100% employee owned manufacturer of precision optics. And I think it's been observed before the pandemic from a business perspective. There's really two cohorts businesses that have been hurt terribly. And on the other hand, businesses actually that have expanded particularly once in healthcare logistics. And so the products we make are incorporated in PCR test instruments. Those are the instruments that are used most accurate instrument for testing for COVID. And so actually, from a business perspective financially, our business has grown substantially during this pandemic. And so the challenge and challenge for us has been first and foremost how to keep our workforce safe in the course of that. And at the same time actually scale our production to meet the need in the market. And so it and it's been incredibly stressful for our workforce both because we're trying to increase production and because they have the same stress everybody else does in their personal life dealing with the pandemic. And so we we acted early and cautiously to protect our workforce. We actually sent all our workers all the workers we could to work remotely very early in March. We introduced additional two weeks of sick time off at the customer cost companies expense actually prior prior to the federal tax credits being put in place. But we have made use of those credits. I would say about 30% of our workforce has missed time related to the pan related to COVID out of because they were themselves concerned about their health or family members. And it has been disruption to our business in the sense that in order to operate safely are our objective was to maximize the person hours but minimize the person density. And so what that meant was adding additional shifts physically spacing people out within the building and also adhering very strictly to social distancing guidelines masking daily tests for temperature and other symptoms. And so it's it's created a burden on our workforce an additional burden. We have been fortunate and cautious and as a result have had limited impact health wise and in fact have successfully increased our output by over 50% the last 12 months. Challenge for us going forward and I want to echo what Sue said earlier, getting our workforce vaccinated we have about 150 Vermont employees. And we're located right on the Connecticut River in southern Vermont and so a significant portion of our workforce comes from New Hampshire we have Massachusetts residents as well, and helping them navigate the difference from state to state so since so much of this response is devolved at the state level that has been difficult for us difficult for them. It's still difficult for us to secure protective gloves which actually in a part from the pandemic we use to maintain cleanliness of our product. So there's still shortages of that. At the beginning of the pandemic. We had to arrange ourselves direct importation of face masks because they were inaccessible in the country and so if I may make an editorial comment and it baffles me that of all things that there was an adequate supply of face masks stockpiled in anticipation of pandemic. So that's in a nutshell that has been our experience. Well, thanks very much and keep up the good work. Mateo Kayla is with sellers at Jasper health. Thank you Senator for all your advocacy on behalf of Vermonters, the dairy industry, and especially during the pandemic. This has been by far the hardest year. We've experienced. And we've experienced a few hard ones. But when social distancing went into effect. Last March, we lost about 40% of our sales overnight as the restaurant industry just shut down. It made us understand exactly how connected we are in the chain from like a farm to a consumer. When you lose a link, you lose something vital and we we don't ship milk we we make cheese seven days a week 365 days a year and we had more milk than we had customers for cheese customers. In March and April and we made a really difficult decision. It was in fact to disperse our herd of cows at Jasper Hill. As opposed to let any of our team humans like go. And I think, you know, the PPP was fundamental to helping us make good decisions early. In hindsight, if we had, you know, succumb to the reflex to to let people go we would have really hurt ourselves over the longer term, because we were able, because we have just an incredible team up here to really pivot reinvent our business. We went from essentially being primarily a wholesale business selling whole wheels of cheese into a hole into the market to cutting and wrapping exact weight on packaging cheese for retailers who didn't have the labor to staff cheese counters anymore. Everybody was like stocking, you know, toilet paper in the center store and to building a mail order business which really floated us in the second half of the year and direct to consumer sales. Now are about 25% of our total sales pre pandemic they were between two and 3% some days it feels like we're working for UPS. But it's really been a game changer for us and brought us closer to consumers and allowed us to build our and leverage our brand in important ways. So just to reiterate, the PPP program was just timely. It was rolled out really quickly when we applied. We were approved by community National Bank up here in Barton and in five days. And that made all the difference in the world to us at a very like a critical moment. Looking, looking forward and what we're going through presently is dealing with the challenges of ongoing outbreaks in our community. The Northeast Kingdom is experiencing COVID and infection rates that we haven't seen before. You know, summer, there were very, very low numbers but our, you know, local schools are closed at this point and getting the vaccination ramped up obviously has to be number one priority we have 120 employees and we've been able to effectively create like pod systems, lengthen the day, stretch the workout and we're, we're really struggling actually to attract and hire additional members to our team because there's nowhere to live up here. Like housing in the Northeast Kingdom is just a huge problem. Every house that is, you know, is filled right now. So that's a huge need, looking forward to close. I just like to say that the dairy industry has been in a five year, you know, struggle with like commodity milk pricing, not really covering the costs of production. We're in the process of really trying to grow our demand for local high quality cheese making milk and market for in our local community. In the process of leveraging everything we built, re leveraging everything we built to build infrastructure to support another five or six farms in the hardwick Greensboro crafts very clever communities. So we're optimistic. Looking forward. Okay, thanks. Thanks very much. Keep up the great work. Vicki semi is with Turtle Island Children's Center in my period, which is a nonprofit. Thank you so much for having me here today, Senator, and thanks to all the panelists whose services and goods that we rely on in Vermont. In the field of early education, we don't seem to really fit the mold anywhere. We are left out when people refer to schools, even though we know that childcare workers are indeed teachers. We're educators at a time when human brains are developing more rapidly than they ever will. Financially we're not valued as such. This is a ongoing problem. The predominantly women who continue to do this critical labor of love are some of the lowest paid workers in the United States. It's always strange to be lumped in with businesses because people might assume that we work to make profit. And I can assure you that there has never been profit in childcare, nor should there be. Even though the economic system under which we all live and work and some do profit would not function without childcare. So last year we were shut down for two and a half months. During that time Vermont issued stabilization payments to childcare providers to cover lost tuition enrollment. And we would not have survived and been able to reopen otherwise. So we are very grateful to Vermont lawmakers for continued stabilization. As we were preparing to reopen, we started hearing the same message from state and national leaders who were saying that childcare was one of the biggest obstacles to reopening the economy. On par only with the lack of available testing and PPE at that time. Employers were saying that childcare was in fact the single biggest obstacle to getting employees back to work. And it remains as such childcare providers are vital to the functioning of the economy. And yet it is an economy that does not work for these essential indispensable workers. So we hit the ground running in June and we've been going nonstop since then surviving yes. And thanks to federal and state financial support we have been able to do more than survive. We'll find a lot of joy in our nature based early education program. But where there is joy no doubt there's behind the scenes struggle. We had to reduce our enrollment on shorten our program day and increase our time outdoors, which is a great thing to be able to provide safe nurturing care and education in the pandemic context. Reduced hours are really hard for working parents as probably you all as employers know. And so are the strict stay at home guidelines when it comes to children exhibiting symptoms, even just a runny nose symptoms also perpetuate the staffing shortage that we've always faced. Leaving teachers out of work for at least a few days if they're awaiting COVID test results or if their own children are sent home from school. Financially we've been able to access funds through the PPP, the EIDL loan and state grants through the Department of Children and Families. We also took advantage of the FFCRA, which allowed our teachers to get paid when they were absent for COVID related reasons. We continue to operate because these programs have allowed us to do so. It's important to note that not all childcare programs have an administrative team or a business manager to spearhead funding applications as we do here at Turtle Island. Home based providers in particular act as director, business manager, teacher, facilities manager all in one. To even apply for programs that are out there takes quite a bit of time, energy and resources that most childcare workers just don't have. So moving forward, the statewide early childhood educators coalition of Vermont has proposed to Vermont lawmakers what could be done with American Rescue Plan funds to save and sustain the childcare workforce. And thus to sustain a functioning economy through the duration of the pandemic. The first thing is to issue another round of workforce stabilization payments to individual providers. Direct payments to individuals are necessary to offset unsustainably low wages and ongoing workforce instability in the pandemic context. We each provider who applied for it received a payment of $936 I think it was in December. It was the end of the month and the end of the year and that money went a long way just in boosting morale and allowing people to put food on the table. We have extreme difficulties in recruitment and retention research estimates that our state needs more than 2000 additional lead early educators in order to meet pre pandemic demand. So direct payments to providers again would would support recruitment and retention. The second is to create a pool of funds to help cover healthcare costs for childcare providers. This is a global health crisis when we bring up healthcare with Vermont lawmakers. It's a it's a very difficult issue as you know, Senator, due to the health risks and emotional strain associated with our work during a pandemic. We're working with people who, although we love them very, very much. They cannot social distance. They don't wear masks and they have runny noses. They're sneezing and they have other secretions throughout the day. And we're losing staff at a much higher rate than ever before. Many of whom explicitly state the lack of healthcare as their reason for leaving the field. Over 11% of childcare workers in Vermont are uninsured and over 50% are underinsured, meaning they cannot afford to go to the doctor. In order to slow the spread of COVID-19, these close contact workers need to be able to visit the doctor, pay for prescriptions and take paid sick days when they're symptomatic. We are recommending a grant based program to provide funding for these specific health needs during the pandemic. And then the third proposal that we have for use of these funds is to provide new stabilization funding to allow childcare providers to expand our program hours to accommodate the needs of working families. 100% of central Vermont providers that we surveyed are operating at reduced program hours during the pandemic. 71% are offering less than 45 program hours per week and 43% are offering fewer than 40 hours of childcare per week. Enrollment levels are reduced to 80% on average while staffing has increased by at least 10% in order to maintain pandemic compliance. Costs are up while income from enrollment is down. With more staff for less children and a business model reliant on tuition income, providers cannot afford to extend our hours during the pandemic without financial assistance. So we recommend providing stabilization funding at a rate of 20% of a program's current staffing expense budget, which we think will fully support us in expanding to at least a 45 hour work week in order to meet the needs of working families with health and safety at the forefront. Childcare is a collective good for all of us and we need to take care of those who care for our children, the stewards of our society, and we need creative courageous leadership to get us there. Thank you so much. Well, Vicki, thank you very much. Thanks for the almost the important work you and your colleagues are doing. Before I introduce our experts, let me just say this. I think the American Rescue Plan was a major step forward in addressing the current emergencies brought to us as a result of the pandemic, hunger, many families, basic hunger, lack of health care, eviction, et cetera. But if I have anything to say about it, we're going to go further. As all of you know, there's a hot debate taking place right now in Washington about what is called a second reconciliation program, which will deal with some of the structural problems, not just emergency problems facing the country. And I want you all to know that in my view, at least that program is not just roads and bridges and water systems, but it goes into what Vicki was talking about human infrastructure. And that means expanding health care in a very significant way. Expanding educational opportunities from childcare, by the way, to graduate school. It means making sure that we have the housing. I think Matteo was talking about housing. We're talking about building millions of units of affordable housing and low income housing because when you talk about infrastructure, I think you've got to be talking about housing as well. It means lowering the cost of prescription drugs. So when people get sick, they can actually afford the medicine that they desperately need. So that is going to be a very hot debate. The American Rescue Plan was passed at 5 o'clock in the morning by a 51 to 50 vote after 15 hours of debate. One of the more painful days of my life, but that's the way it is. We may go through that again. But I want you all to know that for many of us, we do not see by any means the job, our job at the Congress is over. We have an enormous amount of work to do in order to protect small businesses, workers, healthcare, education, childcare, and we intend to do it. So with that, let me now introduce three people from the state of Vermont who are doing a great job. And let me start off with Darcy Carter, who's head of the SBA here in Vermont. Darcy, thanks for all the work you're doing. Darcy, are you with us? Yes, I was trying to get off mute the famous quote. You're off mute now. Sorry. So good to see you, Senator and ultimate panelists today. And believe me, we've heard so many stories that are inspiring and heartbreaking both all year. But the resilience of our Vermonters is very impressive. I think they've all done such a great job of advocating for their own sectors, too. So, you know, keep up that good work because that's been very important. The communication with Congress. Congress has been, I've never seen a worked recipe 30 years. I can't believe the amount of work that's come out from Congress with these programs to our agency. And I'm proud of our agency. I know there's been some hiccups along the way, but I mean, it's incredible amount of policy regulations, new programming, you know, all the marketing materials and things. So, but we're still hard at work and we're excited with the new programs under the American rescue plan that are coming out tomorrow. As Senator mentioned, there's the shuttered venue operators grant, which is really trying to help save our stages is what a lot of people know it as our, you know, our theaters are movie theaters included museums, live performing artists organizations, talent representatives. And this is a really critical program for that industry. Unlike loans, this is a grant program. And it's really targeted very specifically, we worked closely with the industry as Congress did to develop that program and it's launching tomorrow. So really excited that Vermont eligible organizations can apply tomorrow. We don't know exact time yet, but it's definitely tomorrow is on our website sba.gov forward slash SBO grant. And if you go to our website, there is more information than you can possibly want on this program. There's thank you that they just added 11 pages to it now already had I think 30 so you will be able to get an answer. And there's videos and we have a landing page where you will actually go directly on our website to apply for this program. And we also have support for people applying through the small business development center and center for women and enterprise, because it's a grant program. Our SBA local office. It's a conflict of interest for us to assist anybody. So that's why our website is really robustly populated with information. And we have the network statewide to help you. And you can always call us or someone direct you. So that's a great program really excited about and other things that came through the act for some supplemental appropriations for some other programs. One is called the targeted economic injury loan advance. And that one's a little complicated, but this is for people on the businesses and nonprofits that got part of that $10,000 they didn't get the whole amount. Our agency was worried a little bit about the availability of funding. So this is Congress going back refunding it and getting the rest of the $10,000 out to the eligible groups in the state. So those entities have to be located in the low income community and SBA has emailed these idle advanced recipients to let them know about their way to access the additional funds. So that's already underway. That's going on right now. Also, we've had an increase in economic injury disaster loan program that had been capped at $150,000. Now you can get up to $500,000. And instead of being based on six months of economic injury, it will now be based on 24 months. So there's a lot of interest in that. A lot of businesses can go back and get a bump up. And I know a lot of restaurants are interested in that as well. We do have the new program coming out soon. We're working very hard on it. The restaurant revitalization grant program. It's not ready yet. Probably mid-April. We're trying to get that Congress target of 30 days after the enactment. But so much work has been done. It's really a lot of things are in clearance, but there will be. You will be able to apply right on the SBA website for that. And there'll be a couple other ways to apply. And again, that program, you can talk to us. We can help you with it. So we'll be able to do workshops. The restaurant industry, including the independent restaurant association, is really tapped in and really knowledgeable about it. So although I can't talk about internal things yet because they haven't been made public, there's a lot of media out already about the program. And I think it's going to be extremely beneficial for it. You know, everyone's eligible. It's food carts, tasting rooms at brew pubs, regular restaurants, some bakeries. It just will all depend, you know, how much of their primary business makes them eligible. But I think that's going to huge impact on our state. So just really excited about that. I don't know if you want me to go on. There's so many programs that, you know, SBA.gov or, you know, feel free to email me. Darcy.parter at SBA.gov. And I can talk to you about everything. Darcy, you want to throw out a phone number as well? Oh, sure. 802-828-4422. Great. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator. Our next panelist is Cassie Palimas, who is with VDOT. Cassie. Thank you, Senator. And it's a pleasure to be here with these business owners and with Darcy, who I've had the great pleasure of working very closely with during the pandemic. VEDA is the statewide economic development lender. And during the entire pandemic, we have been using basically three tools in our toolbox, the PPP program, which you're all very familiar with. We have our existing borrowers who we've been actively trying to help through with their current loans and debt by accommodating with deferrals and making sure that we can get them through to the other side, to where there's light at the end of the tunnel. And we also have been working with the state in deploying the CARES money that came from the federal government and was used through the various grant programs. So VEDA has been very active in a lot of the behind the scenes work in deploying the grant money through the CARES Act, as well as the deferrals. And then the PPP, as you know, that's something that all the banks have been involved with. But VEDA as an economic development lender, we have often been called upon as to handle or take applications from borrowers that may not have a well established relationship with a bank, or the banks have stopped accepting applications because their pipeline is full and need to make sure that they can process all the applications. VEDA is still taking applications. So we're one of those sort of maybe to some little known secrets that VEDA does process PPP applications. So just want to put that word out there, if there's any small business owner out there still that's looking for somewhere to get a PPP loan, VEDA is still taking PPP applications. We've, and I don't know Darcy, this may be indicative or not of in general, but we, you know, they're relatively small. And that's, you know, that is Vermont that, you know, that's our businesses are small businesses, just like you've heard from today. Chroma technology with over 100 employees. That's a large business and Matteo just, you know, the cheese making business, you're getting large. And that's, you know, over 100 employees. That's, you know, on a relative scale, Vermont, we are about, you know, the small businesses. That's our bread and butter and VEDA, you know, the average PPP borrower has just over five employees. The majority of the PPP applications that we process were sole proprietors. We did a lot of sole proprietors. And we've, we, in addition to the small businesses, we've done them for agriculture as well. So, you know, just want to thank the business owners out there. And if, you know, go to our website if you're still searching for PPP resources. So I know we're short on time. And so I'll stop there to allow for questions. Cassie, thank you very much. Our last panelist I think is not going to be on video should be on the phone. Joan Goldstein with the commission on Vermont in Vermont economic development. Joe. Hello, Senator. And thank you so much. And hopefully it all could hear me. I could see you but you can't see me. So sorry about that. Yeah, thank you so much. I mean, Vermont did really well. We've really punched above its weight. And I think it's because of the good work of the senator and the entire congressional delegation, the small state minimum allowed us in economic development to get over $330 million out to small businesses in the last year. We had three rounds of grants Vita assisted, but we had just about every agency state government involved in handling calls and making sure that we got the funds out as quickly as we possibly could. Despite the fact that that was record breaking, we know that there's still need out there. And as a result, we've proposed yet another program, which I think if we're lucky today, state Senate will pass it. And we'll be back in business with another round of grant funds to make sure that those who didn't receive anything get first priority. And for those who did receive prior help, that additional help where they need, we know that 2020 was the most horrible year. And we want to do something about it. So stay tuned. We will have, we'll have to devise our guidelines and we will have webinars and take people through how to get at the money and make sure that you go to accd.bermont.gov. There's a room there to sign up for our COVID newsletter. It goes out twice a week. It'll have all announcements. If you need to reach me on that, Joan dot Goldstein at Vermont dot gov. Or at 802-272-2399. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think we're ready to go to some questions. Maya, do you have some questions from some of our viewers? Yes. So we can begin our question and answer period and just a reminder to folks that if you are joining us via WebEx, you can ask a question by clicking the raise hand button. And for folks on the phones, you can press star three to ask a question. So we're going to take our first question from George Sales. George, you are now live on the call with Senator Sanders. Go ahead with your question. Good afternoon, Senator. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is George and I run a small Asian themed restaurant in the Northeast Kingdom. It is a Filipino restaurant in St. John's Berry. And as a matter of fact, we are the only Filipino restaurant in the state of Vermont and possibly just a handful in New England. We all agree that this pandemic has hit small businesses hard, but more so for minority owned businesses and even more so for Asian owned businesses, given the rhetoric continually promoted by certain elements of society. So 60 to 70% of our client base on a normal year come from outside of our zip code. So I know we can be a driving force in attracting foot traffic to our town and to our region. Since we are not a traditional wings and pizza type place, we will take longer. We'll take a longer time to rebound. As we rely mostly in travelers, we can road tourists, a small and albeit growing group of local foodies until the border is open and people feeling confident about traveling again. We are at a disadvantage. So short of influential spokespersons such as yourself personalities and, you know, local foodies in supporting minority owned businesses, particularly those targeted by racism and microaggressions. What other types of support and lifeline can we tap into to help us get up on our feet. Thank you. Um, well, um, George, thanks very much for the question. Let me. Uh, funnel that question over to Darcy. What kind of programs do we have? I specifically designed from minority. Yes, hi. Um, well, the new restaurant revitalization fund that's coming out. Um, is definitely has a priority period for businesses owned by minorities for the 1st, 21 days. And, um, so we're, you know, that program will be coming out in a couple of weeks. And I think, um, be great for you to take a look at that. I hope, you know, if you have any questions, you'll contact us directly. It's again, it's Darcy dot Carter SBA dot go. And also as a restaurant, you'd be eligible for a very low interest loan called the economic injury disaster loan, as well as the PPP loan. If you've been able to access that or not, there's a 1st draw in the 2nd draw in that program. Um, although it expires May 31st, we'd encourage you to apply very soon because it's very popular. Also, our small business development center and women's business center, those organizations are there to help you do a holistic look at where you want to go with your business. And different things that you can be doing. I'm sure you've tried many of them already. Um, but just including different kinds of marketing, they have access to a whole national network of research information for your industry that might be helpful. Um, so that's probably enough for now, but please contact me to be happy to talk with you more. Do we have other questions? Yep. So we can go to our next question. Our next question is going to be from Sarah Beale. Sarah, you're live on the call. Go ahead with your question. Great. Thank you so much for everyone on this call and percentage standards for all that you do for in income and quality, as well as small business. We've found a small retailer in Burlington called Common Deer, which works with over 500 artists and makers throughout Vermont and the US. 2020 was a significantly challenging year for us as we navigated a business that relied heavily on foot traffic, but also that from tourism and well as well as restaurant patrons. As we are in downtown Burlington. As we do not want to put our at risk team further at risk by putting them in front of tours that we're not following protocols. We chose to put most of our energy towards e-commerce sales. And thanks to various grants and a lot of hard work, we were able to survive 2020. But I'm just curious what the temperature and appetite would be for additional grant programs that would be not as industry specific for 2021 that we may be able to expect for small business as I think the industries that have been targeted with the current rescue plan. Both the venues and the restaurants are very, very, very much needed because we're all in one ecosystem and we need them all to survive together. But I'm just curious from those that have experienced significant challenges and those moving forward what we might be able to expect for general small business support. It's hard to say and I think to some degree that will depend upon the state of the economic rebounding rebounding that we see. We created 900,000 jobs in this country in March that's good start. My expectation is that we should see an expansion of economic growth in a significant way. But I happen to believe and I think the president happens to believe that we rather err on the side of doing too much rather than doing too little. So after this very terrible year that we have experienced, I would hope and expect that the federal government will be there as needed to protect small businesses, protect the nonprofit sector, childcare, education, healthcare and put people to work rebuilding our infrastructure addressing climate change, etc, etc. So as I mentioned earlier, there is a big debate as all of you know in Washington about this. Some of us believe that now is the time to move aggressively to address some of the very serious structural problems that we have as well as making sure that we rebuild the economy in a way that has to be done. Maya. Yep, so we can take one more question. And this question is going to be from Perry Armstrong. Perry, go ahead with your question. Here's, thank you for all the stuff you've done here for us. My name is Perry Armstrong. I represent the Vermont wedding and tent and event industry. And I own renters night 10 company in Randolph Vermont and I really don't so much have a question that just have a request. And I want to just kind of give you an overview of where we are in the events industry. You know, yesterday, the governor did open up the state. I think, you know, people feel pretty comfortable by July 4 that, you know, we'll be heading towards a sense of normalcy. Unfortunately for the wedding industry, we've already lost a chunk of our business this year. I personally have events that have been canceled clear into June now. And so that's about a third of my gross revenue for the year. On top of that, the rest of the folks in the industry are feeling the same way I've been in constant contact with those of us. There's only seven rental companies in the state. We're constantly, you know, we're all we're all busy. We represent, you know, pretty much every event, every wedding, every corporate thing that happens that requires rentals. And we're in trouble still. A lot of us are uncertain. We've been looking for a program primarily to restructure debt. That's needed by those of us in the rental industry. It's also needed by some of the people who are standalone venues who, you know, rent their spaces to people to have those events. And so I know that, you know, these people don't qualify for the restaurant grant. They don't qualify for shuttered venues. Well, we're in trouble here. I've been in Darcy. I've been on the phone with Darcy since last summer. You know, we've worked with Cassie here, and we're still looking for a program that's going to help us restructure debt. You know, the idle program doesn't allow you to do that. You can't use that money to pay down and pay off debt. You can only use it to make payments. The problem now is, is that as we're contracting, which is what we're going to have to do, because all of us right now don't feel that we can actually take on more business. I personally have turned away about a half a million dollars with the business that I can't do because the other problem is we're having a labor shortage. And so we're, we've lost a lot of critical help. I personally have lost four key people who are responsible for installations. And I think we're, we're just contracting and across the board, those of us in this industry who are providing the rental equipments are all contracting. We don't expect that any of us are going to be near to our 2019 levels until probably 2023 because of the labor issue. So we're still struggling here. The problem is, is without us having the ability to do those kind of events that we've done in the past. We've, our payment schedules are based on revenues that we would have gotten, but now we're going to only get half to maybe a third of those revenues. So we've got debt here that's hard to, hard to pay. And last year we were fortunate because most of us got deferrals from the banks for six months. And that made a huge difference along with the PPP and the Vermont grants. But now we're faced up, you know, we're running up against this again for another year. And we're, we just need a loan program where a lot of us need, I thought, you know, that we were going to get some, some traction here with the SS BCI program. But I think last week, you know, I was told that, you know, Cassie had a conversation with Morgan Nichols, and it doesn't seem that there's any way that we can qualify for that. All right, Perry, well, I think you've raised an important issue and I suspect you're not the only company that has not received the kind of help that you need. So let us, we will work with the same folks, and we will see what kind of federal programs we can develop that will address your needs. All right, that's what we'll do. Thanks very much for calling Perry. All right, I think we have run out of time. I just want to thank the panelists again, the business groups who have sponsored this event and just to say what everybody knows to be the case. This has been an awful year, and I want to thank especially the state workforce and the state agencies who have worked under very adverse conditions themselves and their offices very often. Many of their people are working from home, but it's been a year in which people have had to come together. Hopefully, God willing, we're going to see the light at the end of the tunnel and pull ourselves out of this disaster. But thank you all very, very much. And once again, if my office can be of any help and I know I speak for Senator Leahy and Congress, I'm in Welch. We have a lot of information up on our website. They have information up on their website. They have great staffs. We're all working together on it, but you can give us a ring at 1-800-339-9834. And we'll do our best to coordinate with the state and try to get you the help that you need. So everybody, thank you very, very much. And we'll talk to you all soon. Thank you.