Author: Josephine Fleming, Executive Director, California Green Business Network
Dear Green Business Community,
As both the owner of a small business in Santa Cruz, and the Executive Director of the California Green Business Network, I have a deep appreciation for the dilemmas and decisions business owners face today while reeling from the daily news regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many businesses in our state are seeing revenues dwindle as they comply with shelter-in-place orders, and many more are experiencing an extreme slowdown as certain sectors are forced to close, community members avoid public spaces, and events across the state are cancelled.This is an incredibly difficult time to be the owner of a small business in any sector.
Businesses across California are innovating to offer services in ways that keep everyone healthy and connected, even in a time of social distancing. This includes everything from dine-in restaurants offering home deliveries to therapists offering virtual counseling to teachers pivoting to provide virtual classrooms for all their students.
I wrote a piece for the broader small business community, which includes resources that may be useful (e.g., SBA loans, EDD support, and unemployment insurance) for your business as well. Read that article here. We are also working on tools to help you receive the support you need over the phone or internet, so we can keep delivering on our mission to support your triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit.
We will get through this by working together,
Jo Fleming
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