Downtown Partnership awards 5 ‘microgrants’
Five downtown businesses will soon each find themselves with an extra $1,000 to fund projects ranging from a new roof, display cases and display window lighting to the renovation of a restaurant bar.
The businesses, The Sandwich Shoppe, Tapas Restaurant, Limoges Antiques Shop, Tattersall’s Clothing Emporium and Emporium Tobacco & Gift Shop, are the recipients of the Downtown Rutland Partnership’s first allotments from a new microgrant program, according to Executive Director Michael Coppinger.
After announcing the program last month, the Partnership received 16 applications in which each business detailed the project for which they were seeking funding, how they would accomplish it and how it would help improve the downtown. On Jan. 14, the Partnership’s business development committee sat down to evaluate each proposal and make their decision.
“Mainly we were looking for capital improvement projects or ways for businesses to better their stores,” Coppinger said. “Façade improvements, buying new computer software, anything like that.”
Coppinger said that committee evaluating the applications did so “completely blind” to the names of the businesses attached to each proposal, in an effort to make sure no individual biases or opinions were a factor in the decisions.
