Adams County seeks donations for business grants program

RITZVILLE — Adams County aims to raise at least $75,000 to help small businesses across the county that are closed or forced to reduce operations because of the statewide closures ordered as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.

“We knew that funding at the state and federal levels would not be enough for all those affected by the governor’s ‘Stay Home, Stay Healthy’ order,” said Janis Rountree, manager of the Adams County Development Council, or ACDC, and organizer of the fundraiser.

So the county decided to create an emergency fund of its own to help 849 non-farm small businesses — half of which have nine or fewer employees — across this sprawling county of 20,000 people find a way to “pay bills and reopen when the order is lifted,” Rountree said.

Rountree said she has reached out to a number of local organizations, including the Adams County Commission, to raise money for a fund that would give $1,500 grants to 50 companies across the county.

The ACDC already has pledges for or received donations amounting to at least $30,000 — $10,000 from the ACDC board, $10,000 from the Innovia Foundation in Spokane, a $10,000 donation from businessman Roger Thieme, and an unspecified pledge from Spectrum Crop Development in Ritzville — Rountree said.

“$75,000 is the starting number,” said Adams County Economic Development Director Stephen McFadden. “It will help ease it a bit.”

The local grants would be in addition to the Working Washington Small Business Emergency Grants pledged statewide by Gov. Jay Inslee several weeks ago. While the State Department of Commerce will award the grants, applications were being accepted and screened by local Economic Development Councils.

McFadden said the ACDC received 70 applications and has forwarded 32 of those on to the governor’s office. However, it will be another month at least before anyone awarded one of those grants will receive any money.

Along with the depletion of the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program loans — which would help businesses with 500 or fewer employees stay afloat by forgiving any loans used to make payroll — McFadden said this all points to the need for a local grant program.

“We’re seeing the pain and suffering of these small businesses,” he said.

Like Glen Running, the owner and operator of Sonny’s Tavern in Washtucna. Running said he had just reopened the business, which had been closed for remodeling for several months following a fire, when Inslee ordered all restaurants closed.

“They shut everything down, and we can’t get our deliveries,” he said. “It shut down our supply chains, and it just kind of screwed everything up.”

Running said Sonny’s caters both to tourists coming through the area to see the nearby Palouse Falls and to a number of locals who come in to sit and have a beer. He can still sell beer to go, but added that’s nowhere near as lucrative.

“It’s only a tenth of the profit,” Running said.

Running said he’s staying open as much as he can to support the community, and that Washtucna residents are doing all they can to support Sonny’s but his business has still “flat-lined” because of the closure.

He said he applied for the maximum allowed under the state emergency grant, $10,000.

“That would help me for a period of time,” Running said. “That would help with the bills.”

But as the only bar or real restaurant within 30 miles, Running said he is going to do everything he can to continue because after the fire a number of residents wanted Sonny’s to keep going.

“I feel the obligation to stay open,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at [email protected].