Chamber Update: Live Virtual Health Expo Saturday

Arlington MA

16 March, 2021

2:18 PM

Description

Your Arlington Last Updated: 15 March 2021 Written by Beth Locke UPDATED, March 15: The Chamber of Commerce offers this update: The Arlington Chamber of Commerce -- with neighboring chambers in Lexington, Winchester, Stoneham, Malden and Waltham -- is presenting the Greater Boston Live Virtual Health & Wellness Fair on the first day of spring, Saturday, March 20. Carve some time out of your day to log in and learn about a wide array of health-and-wellness offerings. You can pop into a virtual chat to interact face-to-face with representatives, ask questions by live text chat, watch a live stream presentation and collect all the info you need to move a little more, eat a little better and stress a little less. Partial live-stream schedule 10:00 am - Sports Injury Prevention with Dr. Mandel, Excel Orthopaedic Specialists 10:30 am - The Science Behind Covid with Dr. Gary Kracoff, Johnson Compounding & Wellness 11:00 am - Your Financial Health with Jeff Wheeler, Edward Jones 11:30 am - Thriving at Home with Dave Tasto, Assisting Hands Home Care 12:00 pm - Same-Day Hip Replacement Surgery - Dr. Grayson Connors, Excel Orthopaedic Specialists 1:00 pm - Pilates with Mia Melendez, Metro North YMCA 1:30 pm - Nutrition Design With You in Mind, LLC - Voula Manousos 2:00 pm - Guided Meditation with Om in the Office NOTE: Schedule subject to change Register now to attend. The event is free to attend. Attendees who register by March 18 will be entered to win prizes including gift certificates and more. All attendees will receive our virtual swag bag, full of special offers and discounts from the fair's exhibitors. The event runs from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm on Saturday, March 20 and is sponsored by Excel Orthopaedics, Assisting Hands, Visiting Nurse & Community Care, Winchester Hospital, Melrose Wakefield Hospital, Home Instead, Artis Senior Living Lexington, Wegman's, Integrative Psychology, Om in the Office, and Johnson Compounding and Wellness. Learn more, register >> Multi-Chamber Virtual Networking: Perfect Your Elevator Pitch Thursday, March 25 3:30 to 5 p.m. Your next big client could be on your screen. How will you connect with them virtually? Learn more, register here >> Adjustments to accessibility for the businesses with under 20 employees On Wednesday, Feb. 24, at 9 a.m., the Small Business Administration will establish a 14-day, exclusive loan-application period for businesses and nonprofits with fewer than 20 employees seeking funds under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). This will give lenders and community partners more time to work with the smallest businesses to submit their applications, while also ensuring that larger PPP-eligible businesses will still have plenty of time to apply for and receive support before the program expires on March 31. SBA also announced four additional changes to open the PPP to more underserved small businesses than ever before. While these changes are being implemented, SBA will work with community partners to improve the emergency relief "digital front door" and conduct extensive stakeholder outreach. And, SBA will strengthen its relationships with lender partners to advance equity goals, deliver funding efficiently, and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. SBA will: Allow sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals to receive more financial support by revising the PPP's funding formula for these categories of applicants; Eliminate an exclusionary restriction on PPP access for small business owners with prior nonfraud felony convictions, consistent with a bipartisan congressional proposal; Eliminate PPP access restrictions on small business owners who have struggled to make student loan payments by eliminating student loan debt delinquency as a disqualifier to participating in the PPP; and Ensure access for non-citizen small business owners who are lawful U.S. residents by clarifying that they may use Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) to apply for the PPP. A critical goal from Congress for the latest round of PPP was to reach small and low- and moderate-income (LMI) businesses who have not received the needed relief a forgivable PPP loan provides. Congress set a $15B set-aside for small and LMI first draw borrowers. With existing policies, the current round has only deployed $2.4B to small LMI borrowers, in part because a disproportionate amount of funding in both wealthy and LMI areas is going to firms with more than 20 employees. The less than 20 exclusivity period combined with the changes to expand access for sole proprietors, ITINs, returning citizens, and student loan debt will help us achieve Congressional goals. Businesses can find a participating lender via SBA's Lender Match tool. New guidance on Paycheck Protection Program The Small Business Administration recently released new guidance governing the reopening of the Paycheck Protection Program. This guidance comes in the form of an Interim Final Rule, Interim Final Rule on Second Draw PPP Loans and Guidance on Accessing Capital for Minority, Underserved, Veteran, and Women-Owned Business Concerns. In addition, see the press release for highlights of the programmatic changes made to PPP via the recently-passed federal stimulus. Several key program changes include: Allows past recipients to receive a "Second Draw" from PPP Makes 501(c)6 nonprofits eligible applicants, among other types of organizations Allows borrowers to set their covered loan period to any length from 8-24 weeks to allow additional flexibility Expands what is an eligible forgivable expense to include costs, including adaptive operations expenditures, property damage costs, technology operations, supplier costs, and worker protection expenditures Clarifies that PPP loans are tax-free and eligible expenses paid with PPP proceeds are tax-deductible Caps First Draw loans at $10 million and Second Draw loans at $2 million Allows Accommodations and Food Service businesses to obtain loans calculated at 3.5x average monthly payroll As with prior implementations of PPP, businesses can apply for a forgivable loan via SBA lenders and should speak to their lender to discuss an application. Effective today, community lenders (community development financial institutions, minority depository institutions, certified development companies, and microloan intermediaries, more here) are able to offer PPP loans to applicants that have not yet received a loan; on January 13th, these lenders will be able to offer loans to "Second Draw" applicants. All lenders will be authorized to offer the program shortly; the date has not yet been announced. For additional information on PPP, forms, and other information, visit www.sba.gov/ppp. YourArlington.com has provided news and opinion about Arlington, Mass., since 2006. Publisher Bob Sprague is a former editor at The Boston Globe, Boston Herald and Arlington Advocate. Read more at https://www.yourarlington.com/about.