USDA Grant Targets Small Business Development in Rural Missouri
BRANSON MO NEWS: Over $200,000 in grant money will provide technical assistance for economic development strategies in a dozen Missouri communities.The funding, announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is part of $7.6 million in grants nationwide to support job training in rural America. The grant recipient is Missouri Main Street Connection, based in Branson. Recipients are required to provide matching funds. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack tells KSMU the money will assist local businesses in retention, microenterprise recruitment and community sustainability. For example, he said, “A very, very small business that might employ one or two people might get some technical assistance to figure out ‘How do I set up a business, what’s the business plan, where’s the market, how can I succeed?’” Or, he says, there may be an existing business that needs help to “refresh itself” to retain or expand small business development. The competitive grants are awarded based on need and distributed to areas that are persistently poor, says Vilsack. He adds that USDA attempts to provide 20 percent of its rural development resources to counties that have poverty rates of 20 percent or more. Many of the communities impacted by this grant are …
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