Moss Point accepting Entrepreneur Grant applications
Moss Point, Miss. (WXXV)- Economic development is a focal point for the city of Moss Point. And now the River City is putting its money where its mouth is and has set aside a competitive grant for 25 thousand dollars intended to help grow your business.
Manager of Titles and Grants, Tom Hewlett, says, “I really wanted to do something that would provide an opportunity to provide some support for local entrepreneurial efforts. Economic development is a very high priority for us for the city of Moss Point.”
The initiative comes after a series of hardships Moss Point has faced in years past
Hewlett says, “Clearly we’re in austere times in terms of our tax base. We’ve lost significant industry and years ago they wiped out half of main street of the business on the east side. And we are just frankly in a position where we want to do everything, we can to encourage economic development with new business and industry and its certainly a possibility.”
Hewlett also shared how to qualify for the grant. Hewlett says, “You just simply need to be a for-profit business and we prefer one that has an interest in growing beyond their current capacity but they do have plans on how they want to add an additional line or add an additional product or improve facility. The expectation is that they grow their business and they hire someone right? And hopefully hire someone with the intent of giving them a hand up.”
We also spoke to a Lakelia Jones, the co-owner of Sugar Beans Cafe. She talked to us about how impactful the grant would be. Jones says,” The grant would be beneficial to help us to bring other food options moss point right now, to help expand the options for our citizens and help bring more businesses here to our city. Small businesses, we thrive on hard work, but any assistance that we can receive from any type of grant or even our community like our city right now that’s helping small businesses, that’s monumental to us”
The deadline to apply is April 17th. After that, financial specialists will evaluate and rank proposals from business owners, and the winner will be announced may 6th at that day’s Board of Alderman meeting.
