NEWS

Grants, ingenuity helped Bellani keep open in Covid turbulence

By JOHN HOWELL
Posted 2/16/22

By JOHN HOWELL Kelly LaChance Guertin didn't need an invitation. As soon as she learned of Gov. McKee's $12.5 million Rhode Island Rebounds grant program to assist small businesses impacted by the pandemic, she applied for the maximum $5,000 grant.

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in
NEWS

Grants, ingenuity helped Bellani keep open in Covid turbulence

Posted

Kelly LaChance Guertin didn’t need an invitation. As soon as she learned of Gov. McKee’s $12.5 million Rhode Island Rebounds grant program to assist small businesses impacted by the pandemic, she applied for the maximum $5,000 grant. Applications for the program closed Tuesday. She hasn’t learned yet whether she is a recipient, but regardless she is an advocate of small businesses reaching out for help in these times.

Guertin knows firsthand what grants can mean. Without them, she questions whether the business she started in 2006 would still be here. When the shutdown hit in March of 2020, Guertin couldn’t walk away from the years she had invested and the relationships she had built even though the door to her shop was closed and paying the rent and employees were bleeding her dry.

Kelly continued to come to her business daily although she didn’t have any customers and the rooms once filled with children’s voices were silent. Often hers was the only car in the Route 2 plaza anchored by Staples, Pier One and Pet Smart. The cops would check on her, which was reassuring.

Kelly used the time to redecorate the store, Bellani, and to stay in contact with families hunkered down at home. Her business is a combination of retail and events including kids’ birthday parties and classes for children under five years old. Covid delivered a double whammy. Customers weren’t coming into her retail business. They were most likely buying online and distancing the gathering requirements, not to mention concerns for the safety of the families she served made classes and parties difficult even when restrictions were eased.

She tried Zoom meetings but they didn’t prove effective.

When retail reopened in May 2020, customers didn’t return. She went to Facebook Live shopping of the children’s games and toys carried in the store. She came up with children’s gift baskets and her own “stork delivery.”

The stork went with her for deliveries. One benefit to the pandemic was the lack of traffic. Stork deliveries were fast and she, her kids and employees could cover a lot of the state quickly. And while it was great to have some business, Bellani – the name given the store by her husband Paul (a combination of the Italian words beautiful and years) – it wasn’t going to be enough to balance the books. Retail alone didn’t make it.

She received a $12,300 PPP grant that offset the cost of her eight part time employees.

In November of 2020, she applied for a $10,000 pause grant. She remembers the day when she learned her application was approved. It was gray and there was a mixture of rain and snow. It was miserable, but for Kelly it was a bright ray of hope after a prolonged period of stress and despair. It gave her a boost when she needed it the most. As she has also received a $2,600 Back to Business grant.

She resumed classes, at first limiting them to four children and then increasing numbers as protocols dictated and parents became comfortable. When in-person was not possible, she was able to do some of her childbirth, breast-feeding, baby yoga, baby dancing, music and CPR classes on Zoom

Should she win a Rebound grant, Kelly said it would be used “to offset costs and to assure a successful business.” She has also applied for a city grant through Community Development to hire and train another employee.

In a release announcing Rebounds grants, Gov. McKee said, “Small businesses continue to face challenges as they work to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism and hospitality businesses – as well as retail and personal service businesses that rely upon foot traffic – continue to face hardships. These grants from my Administration’s Rhode Island Rebounds program will provide immediate relief to these businesses and I thank the General Assembly for approving and funding this program.”

On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Commerce that oversees the grants program said more than 3,000 small businesses applied for Rebounds grants. She said applicants would learn in a week to ten days whether they won a grant.

grants, Bellani

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here