 Good afternoon everyone and welcome. I think we're going to get started. I'm Ann Del Castiglio, commissioner of the mayor's office of media and entertainment. As some of you may know, we started out as the film office and our office has since expanded to now five divisions. So in addition to supporting film and television production in New York, we also run the office of nightlife, NYC media, the municipal broadcast and radio network, press credentials, and creative sector programs, film, television, theater, music, advertising, publishing, digital content, and video games. Together these sectors represent close to $150 billion in economic activity for the city and close to half a million jobs. Film, of course, continues to be the lion's share of that activity, representing $82 billion in economic activity and close to 185,000 jobs, representing about 6.5% of New York City's overall domestic product. We know that film fuels more than just production businesses. It also fuels small businesses such as yours, such as the ones probably represented on this call, cafes, florists, slumber yards, dry cleaners. And so, you know, knowing that we recognize that the strike, the writer's strike going into now going into its second month is likely having an effect on many of you. And so we wanted to be sure that we were able to connect you to resources and information that can support your businesses through during this time. I am delighted that we have our colleagues in government represented, Lily and Vale from Small Business Services, Matthew Kennedy from Empire State Development Corporation at the state level, and Rob and Daniels from the Small Business Administration at the federal level, who are all here to share with you some supports and information that will hopefully be helpful to you. I also want to thank our staff at MOME for pulling this together, in particular, Etabria Crouch, Noel Murray, and Marisa Rodanti, as well as our comms and marketing team for getting the word out about this. If there are folks that you know who weren't able to join today, we will be recording this session and it will be posting it on our social channels so that if folks weren't able to attend, they'll still be able to access the information presented to you today. So thank you again for being here, and now I'm going to turn it over to Tabri. Thank you, Commissioner. Just a reminder for everyone, please type in your questions in the chat box. There's a Q&A chat box, so not the chat to the group, but the Q&A box. Thank you. We will devote the last half of this hour to questions and answers. So we're going to start with our first panel speaker, Lily Vail. Lily is the Senior Program Manager with Capital Access Funds of the New York City Department of Small Business Services. Lily has seven years of experience working with small businesses in New York City and the Midwest. As a Senior Program Manager with the Capital Access Team at New York City's Department of Small Business Services, she supports with the operations grant and loan funds focused on supporting small business owners access the capital they need to grow and succeed. So I'm going to let Lily explain more about what she does at the Small Business Services Agency. Of course. Thank you so much for that introduction, also for the opportunity to share more, both about the Department of Small Business Services, as well as the specific ways and resources that we can support everyone here. So with I am a part of the Capital Access Team within the Department of Small Business Services and as a whole, the objective of the department is to really ensure that every single either business owner or aspiring business owner entrepreneur in New York City has access to the resources, whether it's capital resources or social resources, have access to the things they need in order to grow in order to create stronger businesses and really ensure that we have thriving neighborhoods. Currently, some of the services that we provide and we can connect you to, we have business courses, legal assistance that we can connect you to, financing assistance that we can connect you to, as well as different training programs and certifications. How can you get in contact with those or how can you get connected with those? Well, first with financing assistance, well, we don't have the city or the Department, SPS, we don't have a grant or loan program currently active specifically for this industry. We currently have the contract financing loan fund if you are working on any sort of city agency contract and this can be a loan up to $1 million with a 3% interest rate that you can apply for either while you're bidding on a contract or once you receive a contract. That said, what we can do and one of the best services in my opinion that we provide is we have a network of business solutions centers and industrial business service providers that can reach, that can meet with you one-on-one or through a webinar to share more about what resources they can connect you with. The industrial business service providers, it's a network of nine centers that are physically located in all five boroughs and they serve businesses in the industries of manufacturing, construction, transportation, wholesale, utility, film production industry, sorry, and the business solution centers, those are seven centers within the five boroughs who can work with all other industries. And with these centers, they can either connect you with a lender or an organization that is doing loans or grants that really fit what you need and they can walk with you through the loan application process and really help you pre-financing but also walk you through so you really understand what you are eligible for and what you need. I think with access to capital, making sure that you are looking for the right type of capital as well as answering the right questions is one of the biggest parts of ensuring that you are successful and we're helping you reach that. Another huge part of the financing assistance or the sorry the business solution centers are our financing managers and their ability to support you with credit resources, whether it is building your credit or finding out different ways to build your credit and then building a strong budget infrastructure for your business. So through these resources, we can ensure that you have an understanding of how you can grow and what are the different stakeholders or what are the different tools and resources that are available to you within the five boroughs. Thank you. Oh, and you can access all these resources by going to nyc.gov forward slash financing assistance and I can share that in the chat. Thank you so much for that Lily. Lots of great resources coming through and support services coming through the Small Business Services Agency. Our next speaker is Matthew Kennedy. Matthew Kennedy is an economic development program specialist with the Empire State Development Division of Small Business and Technology Development. He is alumnus of Potsdam College and Clarkson University with a degree in economics and a lifelong resident of Half Moon, New York. His primary focus at ESD is promoting the growth of small businesses through access to capital with a New York State contractor financing program, JDA agriculture fund and small business revolving loan fund lending programs. And prior to joining ESD, he was a successful small business owner and real estate developer in Saratoga County. He has also worked as a loan officer at several banking institutions, spent over 10 years as an internet sales and marketing manager and operated a successful retail computer store for a decade. So he knows a few things about running a small business. So Matthew, thank you for joining us today. I'm going to let you explain more about what you do and what services you provide through ESD. Terrific. Thank you. Well, thank you for having me. So my name is Matthew Kennedy. I am from Empire State Development. Of course, Empire State Development is New York State's economic development finance or economic development agency. I am specifically from the Division of Small Business and Technology Development, part of the access to capital team. So I do have some quick slides I can go over some of the programs, some of the things that the Small Business Division does offer. And what I'm going to touch upon today is just a fraction of what the Small Business Division does. Small businesses do make up 98% of New York State's businesses. And we focus specifically on those businesses with a hundred or fewer employees with a variety of different programs, including our technology related programs for small businesses, things like NYSTAR, our New York Ventures programs, our Life Sciences programs, our New York State procurement assistance programs, which would be things like the contract reporter for helping you do business with the state of New York, and our lending programs and our financial resources, which is the team that I'm on. And that's what I'm going to talk about a little bit today. So our lending programs are traditionally going to be programs that we would call facilitated lending programs. They use a third party to offer capital to the marketplace. The loans are not directly handled by Empire State Development. They're handled through agreements that we've made with different organizations. So we have quite a few different programs that are part of it. The New York State Contract to Financing program, which is one of the SSBCI initiative programs I'll talk about in a moment, our link deposit program. We have our alternative lending programs through our CDFIs, which is various revolving loan funds, actually about a dozen different programs that are all lumped together. Also, other programs just to be complete here that I'm not going to talk about today are surety bond assistance program for contractors that are doing construction work, our GDA Agriculture Fund, which is specifically for agriculture businesses. And we have something new coming later in the summer of the New York Forward Loan Fund too. I don't have too much to share about that, so I won't be talking about it yet. But that is a new program we're going to have later in the summer that follows on our original New York Forward Loan Fund from COVID, from the COVID times. Also, there are some direct lending programs. I'll just mention, just in case you've ever heard of them, the GDA Job Development Authority, the Metropolitan Economic Revitalization Fund, and our Capital Project Loan Fund. There are some programs that do exist that are direct lending programs. Those are primarily institutional and project-based, so I'm not going to talk about them too much today. But they are out there. I just want to give you an idea as to the depth of the sort of programs we offer. So you heard me mention the SSBCI programs. So to give you some background, the SSBCI is the State Small Business Credit Initiative. It was part of the American Rescue Plan. Actually, technically this is SSBCI 2.0. But all of the states, all 50 states, the federal government granted funds to the states to execute programs to help small businesses. New York State's allocation, one of the things that we're doing with it, or one of the things our team is doing with it, is setting up work programs in particular that are using this funding to help get the money to small businesses. Our Small Business Revolving Loan Fund, round two, is a new revolving loan fund through CDFIs that will help CDFIs get a capital that they can re-lend to you. That should be starting actually probably the first week in July. Our New York Forward Loan Fund 2, which I mentioned briefly, that's going to be an online platform that's going to offer small business loans through multiple lenders where you can go online to essentially a clearinghouse to make a contact with a lender. Our bonding program has expanded along with the contractor financing program, which I'm going to talk about now. Our contractor financing program is specifically for helping businesses that are working on government funded projects. So the contractor financing program provides loan loss reserves to lenders that are participating in the program. There's going to be seven of them. To help contractors, and when I say contractors, I don't just mean construction contractors, I mean contractors in general doing any sort of work on a government funded or government-based project. Typically, these are going to be smaller businesses, the fewer than a hundred employees, about $5 million in revenues. And these lenders can offer lines of credit or managed lines of credit to help you complete those particular projects to help smooth out payments. They're offered again through seven lenders, which are contact information is available on our site, which I will show you in a moment. But they are for eligible contracts, or you can be a prime contractor or a subcontractor on a prime contract working on any project that is receiving financial backing from a state agency, state municipality, city, county, town, school districts, a federal project if the work is being done in the state of New York will qualify. So this is a very wide array of things. If you were doing tourism work for a county, that can qualify or for a city or for the state or anything that is going to have that funding. And again, those loans can be used for deployment of that contract, advances against inventory, sometimes it's purchase orders, managing payables, you have to hire temporary staff, all sorts of different finance costs, which work in capital to help you complete the projects. And the duration of the period of the loan is going to be based upon the work that you're doing on your actual contract, the lender is going to establish that with the interest rates and so forth. Generally, they're going to be in the 18 month range, it's going to depend upon what your contract is. The lenders that are part of the program are experts in doing these types of loans. So they will be able to help guide you through the process and to help you understand exactly what the pitfalls are, what will you be waiting for, things like that. So now to change gears real quick, I mentioned our CDFIs, our CDFI programs. We do offer an alternative lending directory on our website. CDFI is a community development financial institutions. They are non-traditional lenders. They're lenders that are typically nonprofits that usually work in a smaller geographic area that are more directly linked to individual communities that can offer lending to businesses that might not conventionally be able to get lending through a traditional larger bank. So startup loans, small working capital loans, small lines of credit, small expansion loans, there are 60 lenders that are in our directory. Some of those small business evolving loan fund lenders will be in that directory that cover different areas of the state. You can go into the directory, choose your county. It's going to give you a breakdown of as to who you can contact in that area and the types of loans they offer. But these are organizations that can offer loans anywhere from $500 to $4 million, depending upon the organization. It is a great resource to look at. They all have some sort of credit evaluation system that steps beyond your traditional credit score. They're going to be able to look at your ability to pay. They're going to look at your cash flows. You're going to be able to help get yourself established that first time if you can't go get a loan at a commercial bank. And now finally, as one quick step, we do have a program that's through commercial banks that's called the Link Deposit Program. And this is actually a terrific program. It's been around for a very long time, but it can offer you an interest rate reduction on a loan, a fixed rate, a fixed rate fixed term loan through a traditional commercial bank. These loans can offer it's up to a 2% interest rate reduction based upon the lender's four-year CD rate. Since interest rates have popped up so much in the last year, this program activity is picked up dramatically. Essentially, what happens is that you go get a loan from a commercial bank. The state of New York makes a deposit into that bank for the amount of that loan in a four-year CD and up to 2% interest that they would typically get paid on the four-year CD. Instead of New York getting paid the money in interest, that interest money comes off of what you're paying on your loan. So it reduces the cost of your loan by that interest rate on that four-year CD. Right now, again, interest rates have gone up. So four-year CD rates are high. A lot of times now they're starting to hit that 2% cap or a couple years ago, maybe they weren't. Typically, these are going to be businesses that are manufacturing firms. They're going to qualify for this program. Manufacturing service businesses that are business to business services, not necessarily service businesses that are going to individuals like a daycare or a funeral home or a salon, but a business to business toward a service business. Start-up businesses, unfortunately, are never eligible. Business does need to be headquartered inside of New York state and business headquartered outside of New York state can't qualify. Typically, in most situations, there are certain businesses that are not eligible. Retail businesses aren't eligible. Usually professional services aren't eligible. That would be something that if you required a license to operate in the state as far as like a healthcare legal accounting, so forth. Or a personal service business again doesn't qualify, but there is an important exception I want to point out that a business in a distressed census tract can still qualify even if they're in that category. So if your business happens to be located in a distressed census tract anywhere in the state that can potentially qualify for you that will bypass that requirement, you can be part of the link deposit program. So there are 64 current lenders that are part of the program, but if you're looking for more information, I would check out our website, or you can always contact that phone number and the link deposit website or link deposit email address directly, give you more information on link deposit. We are going to answer questions at the end, but I do want to give you my small business hub web address, and I want to show that QR code again, you scan QR code, go to our SSBCI website. So thanks for the time. I know I ran through as quickly as I could, and if you have further questions, please reach out. That was fantastic. Such a plethora of products and resources through the Empire State Development Corporation. Thank you so much, Matthew. Okay, all right. Last but not least, we have Robin Daniels, our lenders specialist from the New York District Office of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Robin has been working for the U.S. Small Business Administration for more than 30 years. She started her career in disaster assistance, dealing directly with barbers and loan collection. In 2004, she moved to the 8A Business Development Division in the agency's New York District Office. Following her work in business development with small businesses, she took on a new role as a lenders relations specialist. In this capacity, Robin provides training to lenders on loan processing, servicing, purchasing, and liquidation. She also represents the New York District Office finance division in matters relating to financial institutions and the operation procedures necessary for use of the SBA's loan programs, while creating outreach efforts, coordinating with lending institutions, and SBA's resource partners to develop access to capital roundtables, panel discussions, and networking events. Well, welcome, Robin. We look forward to hearing more about the services and products offered through SBA. Hello, and thank you. As she introduced, my name is Robin Daniels. I'm a lenders relations specialist with the Small Business Metro New York District Office, which means I am here to help you understand how the SBA gets you access to capital via our loan guarantee programs. Capital access is one of our three C's, which are counseling capital and contracting. The U.S. Small Business Administration makes the American dream of business ownership a reality as the go-to resource and voice for small businesses backed by the strength of the federal government. The SBA empowers entrepreneurs and small business owners with the resources and support they need to start and grow their businesses. It delivers services to people through an extensive network of SBA field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations. The SBA loans, they are not a direct loan from SBA itself. Rather, it is a loan that has been made by a commercial lending partner, which are our banks. The SBA has the guarantees for these partners and has been structured according to SBA's requirement. This helps to minimize the risk for both partners and borrowers. Only those reasonable access to other lending sources are eligible for such a loan because guarantee requirements and practices are dependent on the U.S. government, I'm sorry, changes to policies or economic conditions that may vary from change during lending terms. With that, the SBA's resource partner network is a network that helps to expand our outreach to service the nation's small business community outside of our district office. Whether you need to create a successful business plan, get expert advice on expanding your business or train your team. The SBA makes sure you're never far from the help that you need. You can find our resource partners closest to you by going to our website sba.gov slash local assistance. Next slide, please. Our SBA loan programs are our 7A loan programs. We have our 504. We have microloans. We have community advantages as well as international trade. Our flexible loan programs can provide financing to a variety of business needs. We offer fully amortized loan with no balloon payments, balloon payment surprises, as well as offer flexible repayment options. What's more, what's more is SBA loan provides the proper debt structures that's matching assets to liabilities. Next slide, please. Now, we have our 7A loan maximum guarantee is the 85% for loans up to 150,000 and 75 for loans above 150,000. Maximum loan amount is $5 million. The maximum guaranteed amount on that $5 million is $3.75 million. We have our SBA express program, and you can see that is a streamlined process. The maximum on that one as of September 2021 is $500,000. Next slide, please. Okay, so we have our community advantage loan program that is actually going to underserved markets. Businesses located in low to moderate income communities, empowerment zones, or enterprise communities, which is the EZ slash EC. We have our historical underutilized business zones, which is the hub zone, and that is in rural areas. New businesses, those in operations less than two years can actually qualify for the SBA advantage. We have our micro loans on loan amounts up to 50,000, and those are administered by our CDFIs, which are our non-profit lenders. The maximum interest rates going from some of those lenders are prime plus six percent, and the maximum guarantee on those ones also are 85% for loans, 150,000, which goes for the community advantage. Next slide, please. Now, we have our 504 loan program. The loan program is a long-term financing tool for economic development within the community. 504 loan program provides growing businesses with long-term fixed rate financing for major fixed assets such as land, building, or heavy machinery. Our CDFIs, which are not CDFIs, our CDCs, my mistake, which are certified development companies, is a non-profit corporation that is set up to contribute to the economic development of its communities. We have three CDCs that work for us, and they actually do all of our paperwork for SBA. They also help with 90% financing. You can get mortgage recording tax savings, as you can see, and can be up to 20 years to 25 years for term real estate. Next slide. So the 504 project includes a loan structure with a senior lien from a private sector lender, covering up to 50% of the project cost, a loan secured with a junior lien from the CDC backed by SBA 100% guarantee, and the last percent, and that will cover up to 40%, and the contributions of at least 10% equity is going to come from the small business that is actually being helped. Next slide. We have our 7A international trade loans. 95% of the world's customers are located outside of the United States, and SBA international trade loans help small businesses explain globally and increases revenues, and they have a guarantee from 75% to 90%. Now, there are three distinct loan programs that we do have. We have an export express. We have the export working capital program, which is the EWCP, as well as international trade loans. Next slide, please. Now, this is the disaster assistance loans. Sorry, I got kind of lost each year to SBA provides billions of dollars in low interest, long term disaster loans to help small business owners and renters recover from declared disasters, such as real estate, personal property, economic, machinery, inventory, and if you're active duty military. Now, this is our last one. As I stated before, we have our guarantees fees that are actually based on the total loan amount, 150,000 or less is 2% guarantee fees. Over 150 to 700 will be 3% and so on and so forth. Now, to offset the cost of SBA loan program to the tax pays, the agency does charge lender a guarantee fee and a service fee for each loan and that's it is dispersed. The amount of fee is actually based on the guarantee portion of the loan. So with that last one, my name is Robin Daniels. If you need any of the further information, all of my information is there and that is the end of my presentation. Turn it back. Thank you so much, Robin. And now we will open up the floor to audience questions and have our panelists answer your questions. It looks like we've got one question up so far. Can Mr. Kennedy please show the slide with the QR code and contact information and then we'll also have Robin share the project. Let's see. There you go. Great. And this webinar is being recorded and it will be uploaded to YouTube so everyone will have access to the webinar post this. Yes, and then we'll also be emailed to register and so do not fret. You will still have access to this information once this webinar ends. Can we also see Robin's contact info? The last slide on her deck. Fantastic. Okay. Well, I'm wondering, you know, these are precarious times for many small business owners affected by the WGA strike. I'm wondering anyone from our esteemed panel can help address how best are the recovery loans, how best can our businesses, our small businesses navigate this time with the services and resources that either you've mentioned or any other resources that you can suggest even outside of our agency's resources. So thoughts on that? Well, I would suggest to, you know, take a look at our website. Please take a look at our ESD website for the Small Business Hub. Small Business Hub, there's a great deal of information in there that goes beyond these particular programs. There is a great directory. There's a directory of small business programs that gets updated on a regular basis that goes across all agencies, goes beyond our agency as well. Also, you know, we do offer support services, things like our entrepreneurship assistance program, our entrepreneurship assistance centers around the state along with there are, you know, other technical resources that are available, even if you're looking for work or if you're looking for context to fulfill, you can always look at our New York City contract reporter as a place to find work. Not everything gets listed there, but state agencies and authorities that are required to post anything, it's over $25,000 in allocation are required to post it there. So there are different avenues that you can go down to try to maybe, the word I'm looking for would be diverge a little bit from what you might be doing if you're looking for other work that you could do to try to make up the ground for not being able to do the work that you normally would do because of the WGA strike. So ways to diversify, you know, it's the same thing that in some ways we all went through with COVID where a lot of businesses needed to pivot and this is just another opportunity. We seem to have to pivot so much these days, but, you know, there are resources out there, there really are. Don't lose hope. Thank you, Matthew. Robin, Lily, is there anything that you can add to that from your agencies in terms of resources and opportunities to pivot in these times? Okay. Let me answer that one. So SBA, can you hear me? Okay. So SBA, we actually do have, we do service the 14 downstate counties from New York all the way up to Elster County and we do have free resources. We have our resource partners and they are our small business development centers. We have our veterans outreach business centers. We have SCORE as well as women's business centers and all of them are our free resources that where you can go and have your business plan looked at, your financial services, any aspects of your business, they will give you free small business guidance or one-on-one counseling and I'm going to stop saying free because it's actually your tax payers dollars at work. So those are our SBA resources and if you check out our website, you will find a whole lot of information there. Thank you so much, Robin. Before we move on to our audience question, Lily, can you, is there anything that you'd like to add? For sure and not to reiterate, just presenting on what I did prior as well as what the state and the federal government, all the resources they have. I think there are so many just tools and resources out there. It's just understanding what is best for your business and I know that we are all three of us. We are working to ensure that we can connect you with the most appropriate tool or resource no matter if it's at one of the business solution centers or at the SBDC, the center that Robin just mentioned. We want to make sure that you are able to look for it. So to reach out, we can definitely find a way to put you in contact. Essentially, you're not alone that there is support out there whether that is, you know, like, you know, it's a check up for sure in terms of the health of the business that resources are available to help with that. Thank you, Lily. So we have a question from an audience member. What can you offer smaller soundstage facilities in assistance or grants while the industry is shut down in a shutdown mode and the impending SAG after strikes? So essentially what smaller soundstage facilities, we have our bigger soundstage facilities but we also have smaller soundstage facilities, what can you offer in terms of assistance or grants while essentially there's some business because of the work stoppage? Well, okay. I'll go ahead. Well, I was going to say just so that you know, the federal government does not have grants. Unfortunately at this time, during the pandemic, there were different things that was offered. And unfortunately, those programs have now closed. So right now, unfortunately, the only thing SBA has are our resource partners as well as our loan programs if your business is in need of them. Matthew, you can say. Yeah, we're really in the same boat. The grant programs, unfortunately, have all now ended. Of course, we did have two major ones that were part of the COVID recovery. One was COVID recovery and the other one was our seed grant that was last year. There's nothing really on the horizon than I am aware of as far as grant programs are concerned. But again, there are those access to capital resources. So there are some capital resources if you need a short-term loan. Those might want to look at the capital resources to contact the lender in your area, contact the CDFI in your area, someone that is familiar with your plight and the plight of your community and try to reach out to them and see what you can do. That's probably what I would suggest. So given that there are no grants, is it common to have our small businesses approach each of your agencies for assistance in loans and essentially just sort of keep them a prop while they wait for the work to essentially to return? Is that common? This is sort of a common scenario. How likely are they to be approved for access to these loans? Well, I can say for our group, it's fairly unusual for us to even offer grants. Really the first time the Small Business Division has offered any grants was due to COVID. Prior to COVID, there were no grant programs. We've always focused on lending programs because the limited amount of resources that we can put in them can recycle and can touch as many businesses as possible. Sometimes our funding sources don't even allow for us to use the money for grants because once a grant goes out, the grant is gone and then the money is used. Occasionally, we might encounter something where we got some special funding for a grant program, but unfortunately it's a very rare circumstance. Usually it's a matter of unfortunately hunkering down a little bit trying to control your costs and waiting out the storm. It's not that unusual for someone to have to go get a loan. Like I said, these lenders, the lenders that I mentioned are all very capable of looking at things, your cash flows, looking at other situations, realizing this isn't going to last forever. The work will be back and chances are the work that's not happening now will happen then. It's a matter of kind of holding out hope, but it's not unusual necessarily to go have to go get a loan. Thank you, Matthew. I think we're all needing a bit of hope. Robin, Valen, do you have any additional thoughts on how to mitigate these times? Our SBA funding programs have been a major part of the struggling businesses. SBAs and that work of resource partners have given guidance, like I stated before, throughout every aspect of business. So you can actually call or go to our website, find the local assistance in your area, set up an appointment, talk to them on the phone, ask them any questions. They might have different information than we do on the side. I'm not sure, but it's free. You can always go to the Small Business Development Centers, the SCORE. We call them WBCs. We have our VBOCs. So any one of our resource partners, you can reach out and see what type of information they may have or any assistance they may be able to help you with. So that's outside of our 7A and our 504 loan programs. I think to add on to that, developing relationships with the CDFIs, the Community Development Finance Institutions, at a time like this, they're all mission-based lenders, so they won't put you in a situation where it's going to be detrimental to your growth once it returns to quote-unquote normalcy. And really looking at more often than not, they'll look at your financials and see what will get you through X amount of time. And there are also opportunities using these business resources, whether it's a business centers with either of us, to just reorganize your budget or reorganize your finances to see what you need to do in order, like Matt said, just to hunker down to ensure you're able to move, just to move forwards. Thank you for that, Lily. We have a very specific question from an attendee. So the question is, we have variable interest loans for equipment and capital improvements that are very expensive right now because of high interest rates. What are specific no low flash fix interest loans that could be used to pay the variable loans off or transfer them? So what they're looking for something is called a debt consolidation. That's what they're trying to do. I'm going to ask, you know, to get a better understanding. They want to combine everything into one big major loan, right? It sounds about right to how do you navigate paying off these high interest loans into something it sounds about right to transfer it to a lower loan situation? Well, the only thing that popped into my head was to refinance them. Some of the SBA loans do offer refinancing. But do I actually have to go through the lender in order to get it all done? SBA does not actually do it. But if there are SBA loans, you can actually talk to the lender in regards to see if they can get those debts refinanced smaller or see if they can put them all together into one. But it's up to the lender. They need to go to the lender and actually talk to them and see what they can offer. Yeah, and I would completely agree with that that it's about making a relationship with your lender and talking to your lender. Unfortunately, a lot of the programs that we offer because our economic development programs are about creating new activity, not previous activity. A lot of times there are clauses, there are things that are written into the programs that don't allow for loans to be refinanced because they're not for paying taxes and arrears. They're not for refinancing things that were existing activity because the idea was to create new activity. Now, there are some programs that we have offered like the small business revolving loan fund that will allow a certain level of refinancing if there's a benefit to the borrower. But again, I would reach out to the lender because lenders have lots of different resources, especially CDFIs right now. There have been many different CDFI programs that go beyond just the couple that I've talked about. They may be able to help, but start the conversation with the lender. That's really the key. Don't be afraid to talk to a lender to say, can you help me get my payments down? I know I'm making my payments on time, but it's becoming a strain. Can you help? It just doesn't hurt to have that conversation. Thank you both. Can you remind us what a CDFI is? Again, I'll let you mention that they're mission-based lenders. What does that mean? CDFI stands for Community Development Financial Institution. They are typically going to be nonprofit lenders. They are smaller volume lenders that aren't traditional commercial banks. A lot of times they may actually get funding from the commercial market. They may go to a commercial bank to get a loan as a nonprofit to re-lend, but all the CDFIs that are part of our directory are mission-driven lenders that are designed to help the communities in which they're functioning. I'll give a good example of one that's up near me here. There's the Community Loan Fund of the Capital Region, which is a local community lender. It's a small CDFI that's here that can offer low-interest loans to small businesses around it that it's in its territory. In this case, just the capital district of New York, it wouldn't go down into the city. But how do they get their funding? They happen to get funding by people like us who go in and set up an account. Maybe I've set up an account and I've deposited some money into that bank. That CDFI re-lends that money makes it available to the people in my community. Each CDFI has got a little bit different structure. They do a little bit different thing, but that's really what a CDFI is all about. It's a non-commercial lender that can help various organizations with capital. There are various options out there beyond the typical commercial bank. In an industry, that's many times atypical in how it functions. It's helpful to know that there are other options out there. Do we have any other questions? I'm looking at the time. We're about five minutes out until the end of the hour. Are there any questions from our attendees? Are there any lasting thoughts for our panelists, Matthew, Lily, Robin? Any words of encouragement? Words of encouragement? I would say just keep doing what you're doing. Go to the banks, find out what they actually have to offer to you during this time, and see what's out there. Go to the lenders and have that relationship as we have stress throughout this whole panel. Go to your lenders, talk to them, communicate with them, see what they have to offer, and go to your resource partners. We have our website, sba.gov, slash local assistance, local hyphen assistance, so that you can actually find that resource in your area and use your partners. That's what they are there for. So good luck. Absolutely. I think that's great advice. And with that, we thank you, everyone, for attending today's webinar. We hope it was beneficial and provided you some direction as we hopefully navigate a not too long journey in this strike. So we're all aware of the situation. We want you to know as a city agency, federal, and state that there are resources available to you. So thank you for joining us, and please stay tuned. We do have another webinar coming up tomorrow, 1 p.m. Eastern Time. It is available on our MOMES website, a link for registration to attend. It is specifically targeting workers. It's part two of our series, Targeting Workers and Providing Resource for Workers during this time. Thank you again, and please stay tuned for more information, as well as an email, as a follow-up to the resources available and discussed in today's webinar. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Have a great one.