TodayCarlisle Federal grant to aid local business
Department of Agriculture cash will help Carlisle economic development.
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Article RatingMoney generates business growth. Growth creates and saves jobs. Jobs help ensure the development and diversity of a community.
That’s the model the Carlisle Area Economic Development Corp. began following in the early 1960s as it started to lure manufacturers into the Carlisle market.
That’s the model it has continued to follow since, lending money to big projects like the Comfort Suites — from $150,000 to a more than $2 million project in downtown Carlisle back in 1999 — and providing money for renovations and closing costs for small and emerging businesses in the area through gap financing.
The CAEDC worked to extend interest-free loans to local merchants whose businesses were devastated by the downtown Carlisle fire in December 1999 and partnered with the Cumberland County Redevelopment Authority to restore the old Woolworth Building downtown as a community project, something that has proven to be very successful to this point.
This track record of administering revolving loan funds, along with its potential to create employment, played a big part in the CAEDC’s selection to participate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business Enterprise Grant program for 2007.
The CAEDC was given a check for $99,900 on Monday from state Director Gary Groves through the program to continue its efforts of identifying small business projects in the community, using existing CAEDC money as one of the potential sources for matching funds.
Rural Development received approximately $1.013 million from the federal government for this revolving loan program, according to Groves. The program offers funds to public bodies, nonprofit corporations and federally recognized Indian tribal groups.
“We are looking for community development through these funds,” Groves said. “They will be loaned out and then paid to fund (development) in Carlisle.”
Groves said the department is committed to rural development in Pennsylvania. He said this grant will allow the CAEDC to relend the money again and again, at a low interest rate, to other small businesses as it is paid back.
Over time, he noted, CAEDC may qualify for the intermediary relending program, which provides 1 percent, 30-year loans to nonprofit lenders for relending to small businesses.
“This is a really good first step for us to expand the financial process for more projects,” said CAEDC chairman Evelyn Weaver, who accepted the check.
Joining in the presentation were Jay “Buck” Swisher of Congressman Todd Platts’ office and Jeremy Shoemaker of Congressman Bill Shuster’s office.
Highly competitive
According to George Klaus, USDA Southeast area director, the application process to secure these funds, generally dispersed in grant increments of $90,000 to $100,000, was highly competitive in that only one out of four communities received any money.
Klaus said that unemployment rates as measured by the census data, meeting financial incomes of the community and the quality of the application were considered, along with experience and job potential for grant selection.
“Their application assured us it would be a good use of government dollars,” Klaus said of the CAEDC.
