Nearly 400 small businesses and non-profits in Venango County have received grants through the county’s CARES funds.
“The small business grants are wrapping up,” county commissioner Mike Dulaney said.
So far, 330 small businesses have received grants of up to $5,000. All together the businesses have received a total of $1.518 million.
Sam Breene, chairman of the commissioners, said the goal was to have as high an acceptance rate as possible. The acceptance rate is around 90%.
Breene said the $5,000 total was a good amount.
“It made the difference for the very small businesses and made up for some of the bill they had to pay while they were shut down,” he said.
Breene said he believed businesses that were told to shut down by the state deserve some compensation for their losses during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We wanted to make sure as many businesses in Venango County as were justifiable got a grant,” he said.
“We helped as many people as we could. I feel bad we didn’t have more to give out but we helped as much as we were able,” Dulaney said.
The only applications that were denied were businesses that didn’t meet the criteria to receive a grant or businesses that it was questionable whether or not they even existed, Breene said.
“If some people didn’t get money it was because they couldn’t pass our filters,” Dulaney said.
Commissioner Albert Abramovic said Venango County was the first county to give out money to businesses.
“Other counties called Diona (Brick, Venango County’s chief financial officer) to see how we did CARES grants to businesses,” Dulaney said.
In all 51 non-profits have received a total of $225,425 from the CARES funds. Each non-profit was eligible for a grant of up to $5,000.
Fifteen of Venango County’s 18 volunteer fire departments received a $10,000 grant from the CARES funds. The county is waiting on information from the other three departments, Breene said.
