On Wednesday afternoon, the town’s Economic Development department hosted the BWG Resiliency and Recovery Strategy Focus Group aimed at addressing issues home based business owners are facing due to COVID-19.
Catherine Oosterbaan from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, posed a series of questions to the group of business owners regarding the economic development challenges facing Bradford West Gwillimbury, how those challenges have affected small businesses since COVID-19, and how the town can help businesses recover.
“We need more affordable resources,” suggested Jessica Crossan, independent consultant with Epicure who hosts several weekly cooking classes. “People have to dig to find us.”
Having adequate rental space was one of many complaints brought up by the group, who noted there are no affordable, professional, or accessible places in town to host meetings, classes, or workshops.
“If we’re spending our whole budget on room rentals, we aren’t making any money,” asserted Crossan. “How can we be professional if all we can afford is a dark room in the basement of a church with only a staircase as access?”
Participant Cathy Allardyce who teaches first aid and food safety, agreed that space has been her biggest challenge adding that many spaces in town aren’t certified.
Affordable advertising was also a major need among the group, suggesting that the town should promote an advertising campaign to help businesses grow beyond COVID.
“We need more tiered systems,” suggested Natasha Leskiw, who runs her own social media and community management company. “We’re looking for some sort of boost from resource groups.”
Leskiw sits on the board of a few business networking groups in town that help promote small businesses.
“We let people know (these businesses) are here,” explains Leskiw. “We support and guide new businesses… we’re not-for-profits and strive to benefit the community, but we’re still looking at huge advertising fees we just don’t have the funds for.”
Other members on the call stressed the need for more PPE supplies, complaining that access to affordable safety materials was a challenge in order to operate their businesses.
“Large importers can’t get the products in on time,” stated Bill Bishop, who runs a safety supply company. “We need the right equipment to go back to work.”
Jonathan Scott, Vice Chair of the Library Board agreed, noting that ordering PPE is expensive and although the library has some resources, it is not enough.
Members also agreed that proper training PPE use should also be available, along with more reusable masks rather than disposables.
“There’s so much waste lying around out there in our parks and trails,” added Bishop.
The group unanimously supported the idea of a “shop local website” linked to the town’s page with a ‘hiring section’ included.
“Instead of people logging onto Facebook and typing ‘I’m looking for a plumber’, they can go to the town’s page and simply click on ‘shop local,’”suggested Crossan.
The group added that giving businesses access to update their listings would limit the need to have someone constantly updating the site and recommended having annual reminders via email to keep listings current.
Members concluded that grant funding was not available to help unregistered businesses and getting into more debt with government loans was not an option.
“Our town needs a better overview of what smaller businesses we have and what we have to offer,” stated Leskiw. “The biggest promoter of Bradford should be the town of Bradford.”
“These aren’t new issues,” added Scott. “We need a serious attempt at what we can fix.”
