Outagamie County (Image courtesy Outagamie Co.)
Small businesses and non-profits in Outagamie County can find help for COVID 19-related expenses. Grants through the American Rescue Plan Act are now available. Outagamie County’s Finance Committee approved grants of $5,000 through Phase One of ARPA. That can provide much needed relief for business owners like Phill Brown, the owners of Miss Brown’s Fine Foods in Appleton, who saw expense rise quickly and unexpectedly during the pandemic.
“Purchasing things such as gloves, cleaning supplies which doubled, almost tripled in price from what they were originally,” Brown said. “So, this will help us make up some of those expenses that we really didn’t account for prior to COVID.”
Brown says those expenses came as customer traffic declined for his relatively young business.
“We opened at the end of January 2020,” Brown said. “About six weeks later they had the stay at home order issued. We would have minimal sales on a daily basis and just struggle to make payments on our rent, utilities, purchasing supplies.”
Grants of up to $25,000 are also available to non-profit organizations impacted by the pandemic
