Bergen Community College: County, College Collaborate For Small Business Support

Hasbrouck Heights NJ

20 April, 2022

8:03 PM

Description

Press release from Bergen Community College: April 20, 2022 PARAMUS, N.J. – Bergen County Executive James J. Tedesco III, Bergen Community College President Eric M. Friedman, Ph.D., the Bergen County Commissioners and Bergen County Division of Economic Development Director Joanne Cimiluca have joined forces to develop a portfolio of free support services for entrepreneurs through the Bergen County Business Resource Network. "Keeping our nearly one million residents safe by ensuring access to testing and vaccines during the pandemic was critical; simultaneously keeping those residents on their feet economically was also essential," Tedesco said. "Bergen County was there for our local 'mom-and-pop shops' when the pandemic first hit by distributing over $55 million through the Bergen County CARES grant program to help keep the lights on and their doors open. But we knew we needed to do more for our small businesses who are the heart and soul of our county. We needed to provide something sustainable to help them thrive as we emerged. That's where the Bergen County Business Resource Network comes in." The newly launched program features free tools such as "SizeUp" software that provides small business owners with customized data on their business and market sector they wouldn't otherwise has access to, while students from the College serve as consultants that assist entrepreneurs with promotion, marketing and data analysis. Buoyed by a $90,000 grant from the County to support the initiative's execution and 16 student "small business support specialists" – including business administration student David Kim – the undergraduates have now worked with more than 150 restaurateurs, Realtors and e-retailers to launch websites, disaggregate SizeUp data and write business plans. "The Bergen Resource Network internship is really something special," Kim said. "You get hands-on experience to learn about entrepreneurship and business consulting. Every business you help is a new opportunity to learn something new about small business and create meaningful connections with peers and business owners. My time here has been such an eventful and exciting experience." Though secondary to the more than six million global citizens who lost their lives to COVID-19, the virus' crippling impact on the worldwide economy reached from Wall Street to Main Street, devastating many entrepreneurs who could least afford such disruption. According to data from the U.S. Small Business Administration, Bergen County entrepreneurs disproportionately felt this pain, finding small businesses in the New York metropolitan area experienced the worst economic effects due to population density, proportion of minority-owned businesses and unavoidable, prolonged lockdowns. Business owner Mark Jefferies, who recently opened Go Fish (a Latin-fusion seafood restaurant in Teaneck), has relied upon the small business support specialists and speaks highly of them. Based in Paramus, Bergen Community College (www.bergen.edu), a public two-year coeducational college, enrolls more than 13,000 students at locations in Paramus, the Philip Ciarco Jr. Learning Center in Hackensack and Bergen Community College at the Meadowlands in Lyndhurst. The College offers associate degree, certificate and continuing education programs in a variety of fields. More students graduate from Bergen than any other community college in the state. This press release was produced by Bergen Community College. The views expressed here are the author's own.