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small business
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04/17/2020
Judy Byron Oral History, 2020/04/17
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12/03/2021
Wendy Vorpahl Oral History, 2021/12/03
Wendy Vorpahl is from Gillett, Wisconsin which is a small town near Green Bay. She has four boys: Matthew, Mark, Aaron, and Adam who all fall on the Autism Spectrum with Mark and Aaron having classic/severe Autism. In this interview, Wendy talks about the impact the pandemic had on her small business and the small business around her, her family’s experience with all getting Covid at the end of 2020, as well as her thoughts and feelings about the vaccine and the handling of the pandemic. Matthew and Aaron also come into the conversation at a few points as Matthew answers some questions and Aaron can be seen and heard in the background. -
12/05/2021
Deborah Jorgenson Oral History, 2021/12/05
Deborah Jorgenson lives in Frederic, Wisconsin, and currently owns a salon in Hudson, Wisconsin. In this interview, Deborah discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected her life, business, and family. She shares the struggles of owning a business in an affluent area during the lockdown and is concerned that if another lockdown comes in the winter she will have to shut down in Hudson for good. She also talks about how she’s grown closer to her family during this time and is able to see them more often. She also touches on how it’s frustrating that her business had to shut down while bigger businesses were able to remain open and had fewer restrictions. -
2020-06-05
Staten Island during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Photos depicting Staten Island Protest during Covid-19 -
2020-03-13
Living through A Pandemic
I can clearly remember when the pandemic began and as it progressed. I was in my senior year of high school. Before we understood the magnitude of what was going on there was a general consensus that it would be over in a few weeks. There is a culture with the media that trends only last a short time and we move on as a society. We all thought this would be another trend. A few months later and many things were still shut down. I finished school online and got my diploma in my car. We wore masks everywhere to stop the spread and everyone kept hand sanitizer on them. I also worked in food service at the time which was considered an essential business. We got extra pay and had extra precautions to follow. A few steps that were put into place were timers to wash hands at least once every 30 minutes. When masks started to be required they were sold out. I made a makeshift mask out of hair ties and a bandana. Soon Covid-19 tests became widely available and that created individual quarantines. People would test every time they came in contact. In the beginning, people were worried about paying their bills. Both of my parents owned small businesses. We had to sell our home to scrape by. As time passed the country made accommodations to open businesses up again. Two years later and we are still majorly affected. Now we are affected by product and labor shortages. Often grocery stores are out of certain products. However many businesses created contactless services such as grocery pick up, and delivery became more widely common. -
2022-03-03
Mask On!
This is an Instagram post by taracomics. This post is a PSA reminding people to be respectful of small businesses that want masks. The reasoning is due to small businesses having less workers, and if too many people get sick, it can't stay open as long, thus giving money issues. -
2021-07-05
Lockdowns Were a Gift to Big Business Designed to Kill Small Biz
This is an opinion piece by Carol Roth for the New York Post. This news story is about ways in which the lockdowns in 2020/2021 hurt small businesses, but helped big businesses. Roth claims that during the pandemic, small businesses are hitting half or less than half of their pre-lockdown revenue. Some businesses, Roth claims, possibly won’t recover at all. This article says that in 2020, the Hamilton Project accounted for 400,000 closures. I find this article to be important, as I think the business side of the pandemic needs to be told more, as these effects on small businesses impact the local and state economies, in addition to what jobs are available for people looking to go back to work after lockdowns end. -
2020-04
Sounds of a Spring Lockdown
On March 25, 2020 Governor Polis ordered a state-wide stay at home order for Colorado. By this time, my family was already limiting our time outside the house to work or errands. My daughter, Kat, has severe asthma, so we knew we had to limit our exposure as much as possible. Previous midnight trips to the emergency room were full of her wheezing out tiny gulps of air, the beeps and blips of the machine keeping track of her heart rate, and the guttural growl of the blood pressure cuff as it tightened around her arm. These were the sounds I first heard when the stories of a new, novel virus came out, the sounds that stayed most in my mind the more I heard about rising cases. The first week in April the movie theater where Kat worked closed down. My son, Gabe, left his job a few days later. I cried that day, not from sadness but relief. And not a quick cry, but the loud sobs that make your shoulders shake. The next day was a major shift for us. Instead of leaving the house to work, they came to work for me instead. My cross stitch shop was already a full-time business. Now that many people were staying home, the US saw a return to basics (baking and crafting), and my shop exploded with more orders than I could fathom. There is something that satisfies most of us in having that tactile experience, whether it be the feel of flour (soft and powdery) as you knead your bread or the stabstab of your needle piercing your fabric. Though there was the stress of craft stores closing and supply chain delays, long work hours, and boxes of hoops stacked in the living room, there was mostly the sound of the Beatles and loads of laughter. Kat has a high-pitched giggle (she snorts when she really gets going), Gabe a deep laugh rich in tone. Someone came up with the adage that laughter is the best medicine. I couldn’t say who created the saying, but the sound of laughter in my house during the April 2020 lockdown in Colorado kept myself and my children in positive spirits. In fact, our lives have been forever changed by that April. They are back to their old jobs, but we still keep mostly at home and with each other. We have family game nights and cook together and keep the laughter going strong. -
2022-02-02
The Luxury of Eating at Restaurants
My wife and I really like going out to eat at the local restaurants. Of course, when the pandemic first hit the Los Angeles area everything closed due to the stay at home order that was issued in Los Angeles county. Naturally we believed that this would just be a temporary situation and looked forward to the day that the order would be lifted, and we could go back to our regular way of life. I decided to use the time sequestered at home productively and to resume my education and I enrolled in Arizona State University to finish my degree while my wife was able to continue working remotely. Ten months later we were able to begin the long journey that was the return to “normal” as the stay at home order was lifted. Much to our surprise, many of the small restaurants that we like to frequent were now closed, out of business due to their loss of clientele and the fact that many were only staying open on a month to month basis when operating regularly. It is a sad thing that the collateral damage from this Covid virus impacted small businesses all over the world in a manner that would not allow them to continue to stay open. Even now, a year after the end of the stay at home order, mandates and medical rules are still limiting the amount of people that are able to enjoy eating good food at their local eateries and it is affecting those businesses that are struggling to continue to provide services. I recorded the interior of one of our favorite restaurants one morning as my wife and I went out to breakfast, but there were still plenty of empty tables. -
11/15/2020
Retail Worker Oral History, 2020/11/15
C19OH -
05/03/2021
Kyle Sauley Oral History, 2021/05/03
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11/24/2020
Kim French and Amanda Hines Oral History, 2020/11/24
Kim French is the small business owner of River City Stitch in the rural town of Prescott, Wisconsin. Both Kim and her lead Graphic Designer Amanda Hines had to make changes to how they conduct their business during these uncertain times of the pandemic. While they may not have suffered as greatly as some small businesses, they found an opportunity to give back to their fellow local small businesses in the Prescott and River Falls, Wisconsin areas. -
05/18/2020
Stanton Webster Oral History, 2020/05/18
An oral history interview with Stanton Webster who discusses his background opening a distillery in Knoxville, Tennessee before the pandemic. He discusses how his business reacted to the COVID-19 Pandemic and his efforts to keep employees paid while finding new revenue streams. In this business-focused interview he also illustrated how a small group of local business banded together to navigate the pandemic and government funding pitfalls. He also discusses family life and changing roles in the home. -
05/02/2021
Brenda Sawyer Oral History, 2021/05/02
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03/19/2021
Jeff Litsey Oral History, 2021/03/19
Jeff Litsey is a resident of the Fountain Square Neighborhood in Indianapolis with his wife and two children. Jeff discusses how the pandemic has affected his family life and schedule while also discussing how the neighborhood dynamics have evolved during the pandemic. Jeff talks about the challenges of running a small, locally owned, coffee shop during the pandemic in the Fletcher Place neighborhood of Indianapolis. This includes revenue, business plan evolution, government assistance, adjusting employee’s hours and pay, and helping employees and customers feel safe during the pandemic. He also illustrates how the neighborhood community helped his employees through tips that rolled into a community employee assistance plan. Additionally, Jeff discusses his anxiety that increased during the pandemic from running a business and worrying about how his shop could affect others and himself. This extended to worrying about his family. He discusses how the hobbies of art, hiking, and birdwatching helped him feel better. The interview ends with his hopes for all people to have healthcare and a home. -
05/03/2021
Jeremy Amble Oral History, 2021/05/03
Keely Berg interviews Jeremy Amble, a 51-year-old entrepreneur who was paralyzed due to a spinal injury suffered in 1991. During the course of the interview the two discuss Jeremy’s disability and how it has impacted his life over the past 30 years and how that changed during COVID. Then the two discuss how COVID has affected small businesses, farming, registered nurses, and the working from home craze. After this, they discuss family life, recreation, and hobbies and how these common aspects of life have changed due to COVID. Later skepticism of COVID by family and friends is discussed and how maybe social media and political figures may have played into aspects of vaccine skepticism and mask wear refusal. Lastly, Keely and Jeremy discuss experiences with the vaccine and the future of life post-COVID. -
2021-09-20
Wake Up Call
I was nineteen years old, now soon too be twenty-one, when news started circulating about a new virus that was spreading around in China. Personally, I thought the whole thing was just a bunch of fear mongering being played up by the media for clicks. In March of 2020 my theory would turn out to be drastically wrong. Slowly the spread of this new virus became worse and worse and before I knew it, everything was shut down and my family was in lockdown. My in-person classes at Duquesne University were all cancelled and moved to online conference calls over Zoom. For the first time in my life, a global event was having a real, tangible effect on my life. Being born in December of 2000, I have already lived through some world events that will go down in history. Wars in the Middle East, the Housing Market Crash, 9/11, the rapid advancement of computers and technology… all things I was alive for but either to young to remember or to ignorant to see the significance. For the first time in my life, I was seeing a major occurrence in the world directly impact my life and was able to comprehend the seriousness and significance. The object I have loaded is a picture of the Ferris Wheel my family owns and potentially one of the last times I will ever have seen it up and running. Hundreds of thousands of small and family run businesses have either been shut down temporarily or shut down for good because of the pandemic, my family business is no exception. My family runs Reinhart Amusements, a business that provides rides and games to Parishes around the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area for their summer festivals. I’ve been working for the businesses since I was fourteen and started helping long before then. Like many others, we too had to shut down because of the pandemic. My family does not rely on this business financially like my grandfather did. For my parents and many in my large family, it is more of a self-fulfilling hobby. I’m very lucky to get to say that my father and his father have put smiles on the faces of kids and adults alike all around the Pittsburgh area. It is now September 20, 2021 and we have not been able to partake in a festival for over 2 years now. It is sad to say, but after talking with my father and if we are unable to open back up in 2022 then we never will. I don’t know what the future holds with this virus and the world. What I do know is that though the pandemic may take away my family business, it will never take away my own and many others happy memories of it. -
2020-03-13
Madison Orpheum Theater Covid sign
In March 2020 Wisconsin had a state-mandated two-week lockdown. So, I went out with a camera (with a zoom lens that wasn't needed) and took pictures of the closed signs on businesses and of how desolate Madison was. -
2020-06-14
Solace in the Smell
This is a story about how hand sanitizer kept one woman hopeful during the pandemic. "Sanitation theater" was a coping mechanism used by individuals, businesses, and organizations used to convince ourselves that we were safe. So much of what we needed during the pandemic, was respite from the dread and insecurity. So much was unknown and so much felt out of control. The smell of the hand sanitizer produced by my local distillery instantly evokes the emotions I felt at the height of the pandemic -
2020-03-17
Nobody's Home
This article shows and talks about how empty downtown Naperville was once lockdown began. This was from very early on, last March, so it was super strange seeing what's normally a super busy place, with people going every which way, so empty. -
05/04/2021
Devyn Nguyen Oral History, 2021/05/04
Interviewee discussed what life is like graduating during the pandemic, working in a small family-owned business and the pushback against COVID safety in Orange County. She describes how the pandemic has brought her family together along with the tight-knit community with similar social values she has created. -
2021-04-22
Community’s importance to the service industry during Covid-19: A business owner’s perspective
This article, written by small business owners, addresses the challenges faced by the service industry during COVID-19. These owners of a coffee shop share a list of ways that the community can support their local service industry, and why it is crucial to do so. They make it clear that it's not simply about buying a product; instead, it is about building a community and supporting those that you care about, which goes both ways. If you support small business owners and show that you're there for them, they in turn will give back to the community in any way that they can, creating a caring environment. The lessons they share are so important to keep in mind as we are still dealing with the pandemic, so that we can build a support system that lasts long past when the pandemic is over. -
2021-04-20
Normal Life thru pandemic state
The object of my writing was to inform others my life was fairly regular throughout this lovely pandemic. It is important to me because I must stay focused on the importance of even though there are crazy things in life that happen, the silver lining, is always to focus on the positive. -
2021-04-20
How Downtown Iowa City plan to bounce back as pandemic eases and shoppers return
Iowa City has started to formulate plans for fully reopening its downtown area. However, a survey of the stores downtown shows that some business owners are considering selling or closing. In order to help revitalize the community, the city has started efforts to help bring the business more customers. -
2021-04-15
Another Victim of a COVID Economy
I have anxiety. It’s not uncommon, and I have coping mechanisms. One of the things that helps me not fixate on things out of my control is being active. So I run. And for the past six years, I have been very committed to “barre,” which is similar to Pilates. My barre studio is my respite from the world, one hour to focus just on myself and my muscles. And the supportive community is unlike any other I have been a part of (I’ve done boot camps, kickboxing, etc. and have never found anything like this.) Since exercise is crucial to my mental health, when the pandemic began, I knew I could not stop working out. Especially with a household of five suddenly being at home together 24 hours a day! I was extremely fortunate that my barre studio immediately transitioned online. In fact, all throughout this pandemic, I have held them up as my example of the exact right way to deal with this situation. They made a digital library, offered multiple daily live classes over Zoom, reopened as a hybrid. My barre classes have been the constant throughout this pandemic, especially before I returned to work in person. Up until a few weeks ago, my most consistent live interaction with adult humans not living in this house were my barre instructors and the other women in the classes. So when I opened my email and saw this message, it hit me like a ton of bricks. They couldn’t survive COVID-19. It makes sense - they had two studios before COVID and rent is not cheap in Orange County. I am, of course selfishly sad - where will I find a reasonably priced, low impact but high intensity exercise studio that is five minutes from both my daughter’s gym and our church? But my real sadness is for the small business owner who opened this studio eight years ago. She is truly passionate about physical and mental health and is probably one of the most positive people I have ever met. And in a way that doesn’t annoy you, which honestly is a gift. As people get excited about businesses reopening, it makes me reflect on how many more have had to close their doors permanently. -
2020
Thrillest Serves
Because of the struggle the pandemic has put on small businesses and restaurants, Thrillest has created a webpage that lists a variety of businesses with links to merchandise, donation pages, and places to buy gift cards. By providing this support, Thrillest is trying to prevent any small businesses from closing due to the pandemic, and are spreading the word about small businesses that need support to encourage people to support them rather than large companies that aren't necessarily struggling during this time. They hope to serve the service industry, providing direct support for businesses in many major cities across the U.S. -
2021-04-07
Covid-19 Alberta Data
This website is the official COVID-19 data tracker for the province of Alberta, this one in particular covers the increase of cases in Alberta on April the 7th, the increase in cases mirrored Ontario’s own massive outbreak of 3,000 new cases. Because of this, it is becoming more and more apparent that Alberta will be forced into another lockdown or at least a return to ‘step 1’ reopening restrictions. More and more Albertans are suffering from lockdown fatigue, and there is blatant unrest as many are becoming fed up with the constant opening and reopening, returning to step one – there has not been a decisive ‘win’ over the pandemic and many would point the government’s inaction to prove this. In regards to my small town of Cochrane Alberta, some businesses are stating that they will not shut-down with the return to step 1 or a renewed lockdown. Largely, they are stating that a lockdown would further gut small businesses which have suffered immensely from these restrictions – stating that smaller businesses have been largely left out to dry without provincial aid, while larger corporations continue to operate. Many of these larger businesses have operated throughout the pandemic while smaller businesses have been forced to shut their doors. On top of this, the same penalties apply to these larger stores, there have been large congested crowds lining up outside of such stores such as Ikea, or Wal-Mart; a condition which would result in a deathly fine if it were given to smaller businesses; but for these international corporations, these fines are nothing. While I’m personally in favor of lockdowns, it is hard to ignore the leniency given to these major corporations and the harm to these smaller businesses. Fore mostly we must protect human life by preventing the spread of COVID-19, yet we must also provide sufficient financial aid to these businesses; while also adjusting penalties to actually hurt these mega-corps when they break pandemic restrictions. However under a government which prides itself on austerity and corporate tax cuts, this will not happen. The attached image is the spike in cases on the 7th. -
2021-04-03
Big business, bigger crowds.
This is a tweet from Toronto Ontario which depicts an absolutely massive group of people crowding outside of an Ikea in North York. Just this week, Ontario has seen a massive spike in coronavirus cases, which has prompted the province into another shock lockdown. However, it is apparent that these restrictions are somehow not applicable to big business. Rather, this Tweet touches upon another important feature of the pandemic and the Canadian ‘lockdown.’ Smaller businesses have been forced to pay out of pocket for the adequate infrastructure to remain open during a pandemic, and in many cases have been forced to shut down when ordered to by the province. However, with each passing lockdown it becomes more apparent that these rules, restrictions, and realities do not apply to the larger corporations and super-stores such as Ikea and Wal-Mart. Larger companies can afford to take the fines, they can afford the infrastructure, PPE and much more – smaller businesses simply cannot operate in these conditions, and there has been insufficient aid to make sure that these smaller businesses, their owners and employees are properly protected. And while cases continue to rise, and smaller businesses are forced to close; it makes little sense to give a free pass to these large transnational multi-million dollar companies. -
2020-10-27
WI, MI Voters Speak Out On Impact Of Pandemic, Social Justice Protests On 2020 | NBC Nightly News
NBC’s Lester Holt hears from voters in the battleground states about the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the social justice movement and their 2020 decision. -
2021-02-22
Black history and the COVID-19 pandemic
Though 60 billion is kept aside by CARES act funding for minority and other underserved borrowers, black-owned businesses are having trouble accessing the government's emergency Paycheck Protection Program loans. The corona virus loan program set 10 million in loans per customers that could be turned in to grants depending on individual profiles. but since its launch much controversy developed as with in minutes funds ran out to well resourced companies. Baltimore cafe owner Terence Dickson reached out to every on he knows as he was on his on last couple hundred to keep the staff paid. He states that the " financial industry has shown me no love for 20 years". He believes that the system should be different. This shows how small black owned businesses have continued to struggle through the pandemic even though the availability of loans and grants are there; but its still unavailable to reach them . -
2021-01-25
Statistics and Additional Thoughts
Total Number of COVID Cases Worldwide - 99.3M Total Number of COVID Deaths Worldwide - 2.13M New Cases Reported 1/23/21 Worldwide - 600,790 New Deaths Reported 1/23/21 Worldwide - 15,846 Total Number of COVID Cases in LA County - 1,073,533 Total Number of COVID Deaths in LA County - 15,260 New Cases Reported 12/23/21 in LA County - 8,224 New Deaths Reported 12/23/21 in LA County - 98 These numbers are so big. Most of the time I am annoyed with the slowness of the reopening, but looking at the numbers makes me think that maybe we do need to be cautious when it comes to reopening everything. Pretty soon, the number of cases and deaths will start going down. I know this because now they are going to change the way that they count cases. It will be harder to get a positive test result, because instead of just looking at the results of the PCR test (you can get a positive test result but have a viral load so small that you aren't contagious) symptoms and contact tracing will be examined as well. If this change had been made before, then my high school friends would probably be attending school again. Small businesses would be reopening already. But I can't be bitter about that, because it doesn't lead anywhere productive. -
2020-01-17
Christmas Without the Joy of Shopping
My story deals with how I had to change my gift giving approach for my son in the 2020 holiday season. I chose not to shop in stores for his gifts, to reduce my exposure to the virus and avoid passing on a virus from myself to others. Instead, I gave him gift certificates. This change reduced the holiday joy for me, as I greatly enjoy shopping for just the right gifts for him by directly engaging in the shopping experience in a physical location, and he appreciates the effort and the unique gifts I always found for him. This is a response to the #pandemicprompt on the holidays for Arizona State University, HST 580. -
2020-03-13
covid
When covid first came out, it was a really small issue. No one immediately required social distancing measures and we were continuing life as normal. I was told that it was only in China, and the likely cause was someone eating a bat. However, as it got to the US, cases quickly escalated and everything shut down, taking sanitizer and toilet paper off the shelves and destroying small businesses. I was scared, but I knew I wasn't going to die. When school got off I thought the virus would go away in 2-4 weeks. Now the cases keep escalating, and it is January 2021. I am way more serious about social distancing now, having learned the impact of following the rules and the terror covid nurses go through. Looking back on myself in march, I feel stupid because I had no idea what was coming. I feel like this was a year of karma, learning, and self-growth and improvement. -
2020-09-22
Business Startup During COVID-19
COVID-19 literally shook my life straight. Before, my life was full of procrastination, laziness, and just simply unmotivated. I didn’t know my purpose in life but now I came to the realization that I am a certified bad bytch! I was finally able to Launch my second company Peasant Cosmetics and relaunch my slime company Peasant Slimes. I did months and months of research on the hair industry so I can came in prepared to dominate and take over. All companies I have started have my 100% pride behind them, meaning no matter how large it grow to, none of it will be sold. I will always own 100% of the company since I didn’t get into business for the money and I would never really do anything in my life except for 9-5 to get money. I also used several extremely fragranced lotions from Bath and Body works which gives me a few scents to smell for nostalgia into the future. -
2020-12-14
Florist during the pandemic
John Mello runs a small local flower shop that has been providing flowers to the local community for years. When the pandemic hit, quarantine was a major adjustment for John’s business. Customers who regularly came in for celebratory gifts, flowers prom, and wedding flowers, no longer came in at their usual rate. As a result, John’s business slowed. This flower represents the fragile life of a local business, and how without the consistent type of attention it needs, like water and sunlight, it will die just as quickly as a flower. -
2002-12-15
Shellsea
Chelsea Campbell explains in a textual conversation that small business struggle with both competitors such as small and big business. Small businesses have been emerging since COVID-19 has begun as a solution for those who have been laid off from their jobs. Chelsea helps to explore the idea that although this is amazing for the small business community it makes it harder for other competitors. Additionally, larger business are able to work around issues that smaller business face such as large shipping cost and difficulty receiving products as they the money and ability to resolve more issues then someone who is attempting to compete with those same standards. Chelsea explain although there is always more room for creativity and entrepreneurship she has had to adjust tactics to become more competitive with other brands even if this is a direct sacrifice for her business. -
2020-11-26
Social wedding: couple with masks on post ceremony
Pictured is a couple wearing masks following a wedding ceremony. The bride is wearing a lace white mask while the groom sports a black one. -
2020-12-04
There's A New Shopping List Of Small Businesses In Canada & They Need Help This Holiday
Article supporting shopping from small businesses -
2020
Canada Strong Coming Together
A clothing line produced by Collins Clothers to help support small businesses -
2020-11-11
COVID-19 impacting seasonal work as the holidays near
As the holidays approach, many people are looking for seasonal work. However, stores are hiring fewer or no seasonal workers because of increased online shopping due to COVID-19. -
2020-11-08
Independent booksellers write a new chapter during COVID-19
Small businesses have been hit hard by restrictions during COVID-19. Many are struggling to stay afloat and have come up with creative ways to bring in business. Some have even turned to GoFundMe's to raise money and bring attention to their business, such as these two booksellers. -
10/17/2022
Sachiko Mortia-Mulaney Oral History, 2020/10/17
This is an Oral History interview with University of Cincinnati student Sachiko Morita-Mullaney. Sachiko discusses her experience as a student at the University of Cincinnati. She brings up her identity as a Japanese-American woman and how that has affected her personally during the pandemic due to anti-Asian racism. She also talks about her small online business, and the different ways her and her family’s employment have been affected by Covid-19. Sachiko, a Political Science major at the University of Cincinnati, is very informed about the government’s response to Covid-19. She shares her opinions about healthcare in the United States and how racism and classism have affected the United States’ response to the coronavirus. Finally, we talked about the future and the quality of the US response to the coronavirus. -
2020-03-17T18:07
Shutdown
The story of the photograph is one that many small businesses will no doubt have experienced. That is one of a thriving business faced with the threat of shutdown. The photograph is one of a small business being forced to face the threat of impending financial threat. -
2020-10-29
San Antonio Family Bar
This news article is about the San Antonio Shiran family business during COVID-19. In July 2020, the family tested positive and the husband/father, Harvey, was in the ICU for the month. This forced the wife/mother, Lindsey, to take over the family business. I also attached another news article about a Bexar County grant program for bars and restaurants affected by COVID-19. -
2020-10-08
A Viral Social Media Video Brings Crowd to Struggling Food Stall
Baba ka Dhaba, a 30-year-old food stall in Malviya Nagar, New Delhi went viral on Instagram showing the sheer power of social media. The link below shows us an 80-year-old man named Kanta Prasad explaining how they barely manage to meet their basic needs during this pandemic. While showing the food he even broke down and cried in front of the food blogger Gaurav Wasan. Delicious and mouth-watering curries such as dal (lentils), Paneer Matar (cottage cheese and peas) and Aloo soya (potato soya curry) can be seen in the video which are only priced from Rs.30-50 (less than a dollar). This touching video reached 9 million views on Instagram in less than a day and even got support from Bollywood celebrities. Zomato, an Indian food delivery app even registered this stall on their app showing their support making #Babakadhaba one of the topmost trends on Indian Twitter right now. -
2020-05-12
small businesses in America are going
millions of americans are losing jobs as small businesses employ 47% of the work force and many business owners are losing their livelihoods -
2020-05-12
small businesses in America are going
small businesses are going bankrupt and losing workers which will only harm the economy millions are losing jobs -
2020-10-03
Smalltown COVID-19
My experience during COVID -
2020-09-11
The Struggle of a Small Business Owner
Throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic and my time in quarantine, I struggled with a multitude of things. I was distraught over my senior year being taken away, lonely from the lack of human connection and interaction, and full of anxiety and fear because everything about this virus and the future was still very much unknown. But none of this compared to my biggest and most upsetting struggle. Coincidently this struggle of mine wasn’t even my own, it happened to be my father’s. My father owns a vintage bowling alley named; The Fox Bowling Center located in a small town in Upstate New York. For over 25 years my father has owned and operated this bowling alley, and he has been involved with this business since he was 9 years old when his parents bought it in the early seventies. This bowling alley has been an integral part of my father’s life for almost 50 years, and during March of this year he had to shut down business due to the Covid-19 pandemic. My father was absolutely distraught and shattered over this news. He was worrying constantly over the future and when things might take a turn for the better so he could open back up. He also struggled severely with trying to pay bills and manage the money in a time when he had zero income. I think seeing my father struggle with money issues really hit home for me the most. The bowling alley never really made a lot of money to begin with, and when this happened he had nothing to fall back on. He worked tirelessly on trying to secure any type of loan that would help him just pay the bills and keep the business afloat. Seeing him go through this each day was torture. I just wanted to help in some way and tell him that everything was going to be okay, but I had no money to offer him and in total honesty I had no idea what the future held for small business owners like my father. Even though watching my father go through all this pain and sadness was one of the worst things I ever witnessed, he still managed to teach me some amazing life lessons I will cherish forever. He showed me to always persevere and look towards the future, and he also showed me that you can’t give up on the things you love and hold dear. I’m happy to also share that because of his hard work and perseverance with financial issues, he is able to reopen now that bowling alleys are allowed to open back up in New York. My father is overjoyed and can’t wait to have his loyal customers and friends bowling once again, even if it is a little different. I will never forget his struggle to keep the business open and when I think about those long months in the future I will always remember his hard work and dedication. -
2020-08-25
Did Prisons Benefit from the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP)?
This Tweet poses a good question for investigation. Did prisons and other incarceration facilities receive PPP loans that were meant for small businesses?