Small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities. They create jobs, provide shopping, dining, exercise and entertainment venues, and spur economic growth. And while the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for many companies, business-focused associations and organizations have re-committed themselves to championing their local business communities.
To mark National Mom and Pop Small Business Day 2021, we spoke with Joe Ferry, director of development for the Perkasie Towne Improvement Association, to discuss how the organization has supported the townโs local businesses โ and their owners – through the uncertainty of the past year.
โWe can’t emphasize enough just how much our small businesses are the backbone of our community,โ Ferry said. โThey are the economic drivers of everything that happens in our town. The owners and the people who work there are your friends and neighbors. Theyโre the ones that support the Little League teams each year; every time there’s a cause in the community, the first place you go is to the local businesses, and they always step up. It’s the place where you know the people, you can trust them, and they’re always there for you when you need them. Without our small businesses, we wouldn’t have much of a community.โ
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Pennsylvania, like employers everywhere, businesses in Perkasie had to close their doors for a time. While owners began searching for ways to adapt their businesses to the new safety parameters that customers wanted and public health officials required, Perkasie Towne Improvement Association jumped into action. With the help of a Growth in Action Small Business Grant from Penn Community Bank, the association launched several initiatives to keep Perkasie top of mind and spread the word that the townโs businesses still were serving their customers, safely.
Here are some of the ways the association supported the local business community during the pandemic:
- Made sure business owners knew about available federal, state, and local grant programs and helped them locate and complete paperwork.
- Created a video interview program, Perkasie Business Chat, where Perkasie business owners such as Jill Strickland, of the popular womenโs clothing boutique Frox, could tell the community how they were being impacted by the pandemic and what they were doing to make their experience safe and pleasurable for their customers.
- Launched Perkasie Live, a monthly one-hour news magazine program with entertaining features about the townโs people, businesses, events and activities.
- Enhanced social media activity, re-posting and sharing and commenting to amplify posts from Perkasie businesses โ including focusing on the personal impact on mom and pop shops.
While the pandemic and the economic impact it has had on local businesses was frightening at first, every Perkasie business pivoted in some way and persevered, Ferry said. In fact, some business owners even ended up discovering and tapping into new customer bases
โOur message to our local businesses in the beginning of the pandemic was โSurvive now so you can thrive later,โโ Ferry said. โYouโve just got to admire the resilience of the business owners that kept plugging away when things were so uncertain, when they didn’t have any idea what the next day would bring.โ
The pandemic continues to bring challenges and opportunities to local business owners, and Perkasie Towne Improvement Association continues to experiment with innovative new approaches to supporting and promoting local businesses.
โSmall business owners are the face of the community,โ Ferry added. โPerkasie is such an up-and-coming small town, rooted in history but excited about and ready for the growth that change brings. The grant that Penn Community gave us, which we earmarked 100 percent for marketing, has been instrumental in helping us tell Perkasieโs story to more people than ever before.โ
