The inequities of PPP: Megachurches, large corporations receive money ahead of small businesses – By Ashley Schwartz-Lavares, Faith Abubey, and Haley Yamada (ABC News) / January 18 2021
Small businesses are hoping for more than a miracle.
With the government set to issue a new round of business loans as part of its latest COVID-19 relief bill, struggling small businesses, like Thereasa Black’s gelato shop, are hoping for more than a miracle.
Black opened the gelato store in Arlington, Virginia, in December 2019 — soon after returning home from a 13-month deployment in the Navy reserves. Her business is more than that, though; it also fulfills a promise that she made to her 4-year-old daughter Isabella.
Courtesy of Thereasa Black
Thereasa Black opened her gelato shop to fulfill a promise to her daughter Isabella in Arlington, Virginia, in December 2019.
“It means everything to me, honestly,” said Black. “This company is literally my promise to her that I’m never going to leave her again.”
When the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, the possibility of losing what she had worked hard so hard became all the more apparent. Black said that during the entire month of April 2020, her business had made only a day’s worth, or 10%, of pre-pandemic sales.
“I saw everything crumbling, and then it was a question of like, ‘What now?’” she said.
