The Small Business Assistance Grant Program was approved by city councilors last Thursday.
It uses $125,000 from marijuana tax revenue to help small Medford businesses.
“We wanna make sure that we get some, even if small, money injected into our local economy and small businesses,” said Medford City Councilor, Tim D’Alessandro.
To qualify, businesses must:
- provide their w-9
- have no more than 15 employees
- have a City of Medford business license
- have no city liens or fees
- not be a recipient of the federal Payroll Protection Program
- not be a part of a franchise
The city began accepting applications online at 10 am Monday.
“It’s important to support our small businesses, I mean, these are our families, our friends and neighbors out there,” said D’Alessandro.
Businesses can receive between $1,500 and $5,000, and then $500 per employee.
D’Alessandro says the response has been overwhelming.
“After the applications opened at 10 o’clock, the first $125,000 that we allocated last Thursday, by application, anyway, had been used up,” he said.
He says before 1 pm on Monday afternoon, 108 applications have been submitted – requesting more than $253,000.
The City of Medford is now going through the applications and expects to cut checks for qualifying businesses by the end of the week.
D’Alessandro hopes there’s even more to come.
“I’m hoping that we’re able to put more money into this program so these people that over-applied would not have to re-apply, as we get dollars invested back into this program – we would go on through the applications and push them off to finance,” D’Alessandro said.
He encourages people to still apply for the business grant, because not all businesses that applied will qualify.
You can apply here.
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