On March 22, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy took the opportunity to connect by phone with the owners of our various small businesses in downtown Millville. The topic of the day was the NJDCA's Neighborhood Preservation Program ("NPP").
As a champion for small businesses in downtown Millville and the NPP Coordinator for the City of Millville, we at HCDC couldn't be more excited by Governor Murphy's outreach!
Per his tweet that same day, Governor Murphy especially enjoyed a conversation with Eric Nyman, owner of local favorite, Wildflower Vegan Cafe. Check out the following segment of the Governor's press briefing from March 24 for details.
As for HCDC and its administration of the NPP, we have some inspiring updates to share about downtown Millville over the past year. Thanks to funding through the NPP, as well as additional funding through the Coronavirus Relief Fund ("CRF"):
We retained 88 full-time jobs and 22 part-time jobs.
We kept 32 local businesses open with those jobs.
We invested a total of $337,398 in those local businesses.
This monetary investment covered several powerful programs, including:
Direct grant assistance to 26 businesses in the amount of $253,125
A four-part series on business survival for 15 businesses at a value of $5,000
Matching gift cards that generated $50,000 of cards to support purchases at 16 local businesses
$5,200 worth of PPE masks and sanitizer for two local businesses
And the year isn't over yet! We still plan to approve another round of forgivable business loans by mid-April, and we're eager to celebrate our perseverance together with Community Dinner Under the Stars, which will bring together residents for delicious take-out meals from three local restaurants in early May.
Looking ahead to next year, we have much more in store for the NPP! Stay tuned for further updates from us, and in the meantime, we thank Governor Murphy and his staff once more for their enthusiastic support of our city during an unprecedented challenge.
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