WorkSource Montgomery Awards $500,000 to Small Businesses in COVID-19 Relief Funds Under the GROW Program

WSM Plans to Award Another $1 Million to Montgomery County’s Small Businesses Community Over the Next Year Until Funds Are Exhausted

ROCKVILLE, MD—WorkSource Montgomery, Inc. (WSM) has recently awarded over $500,000 in Covid-19 relief funds under the Grant Relief for Onboarding Workers (GROW) program. The GROW COVID-19 financial assistance is intended for both for-profit and not-for-profit business entities, negatively impacted by the pandemic, including but not limited to, hospitality (hotel and food service), transportation, retail, travel, cosmetology, dependent care, and other industries with front-line workers, and particularly for small businesses. WSM awards these grants in two tiers: one flat rate for part-time workers and one for full-time workers. GROW funds are intended to cover the cost of the first few weeks of onboarding training upon hiring and are awarded upon receipt of verification of employment.

“Small and minority-owned businesses are an economic driver for our local economy as they provide thousands of jobs to county residents. We also know that these same businesses have been disproportionately affected over the past 2 years by the pandemic,” said Anthony Featherstone, Executive Director of WorkSource Montgomery. “As the pandemic hopefully continues to subside, and our small businesses continue to rebound, WorkSource Montgomery and our Local Workforce Development Board want to ensure our public workforce system is a partner in that process. This is exactly why we created the GROW program —a mechanism to support our small and minority-owned businesses by reducing costs associated with hiring and training new employees.”

So far, WorkSource Montgomery has awarded half a million dollars to approximately 50 Montgomery County businesses who have used these funds to employ an estimated 100 additional employees to maintain or expand their businesses. These are local businesses in a variety of industries such as recreation, management consulting, construction and design, accounting/billing, the arts, moving/cleaning, hospitality, health & human services, entertainment, marketing & communications, and travel.

The good news is that WorkSource Montgomery has more GROW funds to award to qualifying businesses! WSM intends to award at least another $1 million dollars over the next year in GROW funds to the business community until all the funds are exhausted.

We need your help!  Please spread the word to every business owner in Montgomery County and encourage them to apply.

For questions about GROW, please contact Cynthia Grissom, Director of Business Services, at cgrissom@worksourcemontgomery.com.