Woodland Park Business Reduction Fund relieves some of the fiscal stress of COVID | Pikes Peak Courier

For Teller County Habitat for Humanity, receiving a $15,000 grant from the Woodland Park Organization Reduction Software was a vibrant location in the time of COVID-19.

Habitat for Humanity is 1 of dozens of organizations, nonprofit organizations and citizens who received grants by the Woodland Park Small business Reduction Fund.

“The funds held us stable and we were being in a position to start off transferring filth on our Trailhead Townhomes,” explained Keith Meier, Teller Habitat’s government director.

The venture is an 18-device community develop of 2-3 bedroom duplexes on Valley Check out Street in Woodland Park. The homes are created for the city’s workforce, firefighters, lecturers and police officers, for occasion, 65% of whom commute to the metropolis.

“The funds helped to get us by way of this interval,” Meier reported.

As well, with the aid funds, Habitat was in a position to hire Mindy Adleff as a section-time volunteer coordinator. “The resources came at the excellent time,” Meier mentioned. “I value what the metropolis did for us.”

Immediately after various a long time of doing business in workplace on Valley View Road, the Habitat business office is moving to the aged Brazenhead making on U.S. 24.

A consequence of the Coronavirus Reduction Fund initiated in May possibly by Gov. Jared Polis, the Woodland Park Relief Application cash are dispersed to the city as a result of the Department of Local Affairs.

At CNL nail salon in Woodland Park, owned by Kevin Ntuyen, obtained a $5,000 grant from the fund. “I utilized the revenue to assistance pay back the hire, which is $4,000 a thirty day period,” he mentioned.

Shut for about six months because of to the pandemic, commencing at the middle of March, CNL is presently limited to just 25% of the shop’s capacity, which is a few or four clients at a time. “Business in slow,” Ntuyen mentioned. “But we are remaining open.”

At My Sweet Escape bakery in Gold Hill Square North, Renee Taylor identified a lifeline with the reduction fund. Shut for 7 months soon after the original shutdown purchase in March, Taylor didn’t have much hope for the long term of the bakery.

“The payments did not prevent, the rent doesn’t cease … the electric power, the cellphone,” Taylor mentioned. “We even got charged for snow removal.”

In Might, Taylor re-opened the bakery, functioning 12 hrs a day, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., providing curbside provider. “On the fourth working day, business commenced booming,” she stated.

With bakery items and hamburgers, Taylor credits the wide range of her menu for retaining buyers coming.

But then she read about the aid fund. “I did not feel I’d qualify but I loaded out the paperwork and lo and behold! I did high quality,” she reported. “I was stunned.”

The resources she been given — $15,000 — have kept the bakery afloat. “With the coronavirus — and the simple fact that we survive by what we make in the summertime, that cash from the town is likely to have me by means of the winter,” she mentioned.

By the finish of this thirty day period, the town anticipated allocating $300,000 for modest organizations, $100,000 for local nonprofit businesses and $100,000 for the resident software.

Brittany Meyers is controlling the software, which concludes at the conclusion of December.