SPRINGDALE, Ark. — Applications are open for the Arkansas Ready for Business Grant Program as of 8 a.m. Tuesday (May 5). This comes after the website went live mistakenly last week before initial funds were approved.
Jeff Thiessen owns TCBY Frozen Yogurt in Rogers and was applying for the grant last week when he thought the money ran out when the state prematurely launched the website by mistake. He says this time he was on the website before 8 a.m. this morning ready to submit his application.
“I was thinking well that’s money I’m not going to be able to get, so I was pretty happy when I found out they were going to inject some more money to help small businesses,” Thiessen said.
The Arkansas Ready for Business Grant is meant to help businesses reopen and pay for things those businesses need to ensure the health and safety of employees and customers. Originally there was only $15 million available, but now there is $55 million.
“What that will help with outside of buying supplies is being able to use money that would have been spent on that to invest in labor, so that I can keep my folks working and keep them paid during this time, so the biggest help is on that front for us,” Thiessen said.
Owner of Red Kite Coffee Company in Springdale and Fayetteville, Danny Hamilton was one of the people who were able to submit their application when the website went live last Wednesday (April 29) before it hit the $15 million limit.
“At 5 p.m. I immediately got on that website," Hamilton said. "The Springdale chamber had notified us earlier that day and by 5:15 we were done. It was a quick process and thankfully we got through it before it went down. We are hoping what we applied for went through."
Hamilton says with the money he plans to do a deep cleaning, sanitizing the floors and the entire space. He wants to make it a good environment for people who want to get back out.
“It would be tremendous help because we want to have hand sanitizing stations when you come in the facility. We want to have nice plexiglass screens at our point of sale for the customers, so it would go a long way in making that possible for us,” he said.
Businesses approved for the grant will get $1,000 per each full-time employee with $100,000 being the maximum a company could get. 15% of the money is reserved for female or minority-owned businesses and 75% of it is for businesses with 50 or fewer employees.