City of Erie announces latest round of Flagship grants
The City of Erie is investing more than $84,000 into small businesses to help them grow and thrive.
The administration announced their 2025 Flagship Grant awardees Thursday morning.
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The atmosphere inside Erie City Hall Thursday morning was full of excitement as small business owners gathered for a special announcement.
Nineteen recipients were selected for the City of Erie's Flagship Fund Micro-grant Program out of the more than 120 that applied.
Their objective with these grants is to enhance the city's reputation in multiple areas including innovation, quality of life and environmental sustainability.
'Typically we roll this out twice a year,' said Chris Groner, director of the City of Erie Office of Development Services. 'It lets small businesses know that we appreciate what they do. Almost all of the economic development programs out there are really tailored to very large businesses, large projects.'
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Groner said that small businesses invest and add to the well-being of our communities and deserve to quality for economic development assistance programs like large businesses.
And that's why Mayor Joe Schember and his administration created this program.
Since 2018, they have continued to assist small business owners by using some of the interest that is being earned from their revolving loan fund.
'We're just really happy to be able to directly support small business in a simple straight forward way,' Groner said.
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Funding awards are granted up to five thousand dollars…matching money that businesses themselves come up with.
Some businesses that were selected were Lakeshore Towing Services for a specialized crane, Popluck for a new popcorn cooker, and Copy King for a backup generator.
After 10 years of being downtown, El Amigo plans to use their funding to begin a renovation project including new flooring and bar upgrades.
'The building itself is old fashioned and it looks really nice but there's some things that need to be changed,' said David Saldana, owner of El Amigo. 'Thanks to the mayor this grant is going to help us reach our goal.'
Saldana hopes to start construction next month to be ready by May for Cinco de Mayo at his Mexican grill.
'We are thinking and hoping to have the biggest fiesta of the year and all time for Cinco de Mayo so we're just going to get ready for that,' Saldana went on to say.
In addition to Cinco de Mayo, Saldana said they cannot wait for this summer season.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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