The coronavirus-related closures hurt many small businesses. But before that, Black-owned businesses already faced hurdles in getting financing.
“You’re fighting the loss of sales, now you’re fighting to make sure you stay safe and your employees and customers stay safe,” she added.Even as the bakery and its employees dealt with one pandemic-induced blow after another, other curveballs made life — and work — harder.“We were resuscitating it every time, giving it CPR and it just got worse and worse,” Bolden-Pickens said.
Jeanette Bolden-Pickens, left, delivers a pie order to customer Clarence Ellis. When the pandemic struck, Bolden-Pickens says bakery sales sank 50%., some luck: After successive failures, the bakery finally got a $10,000— part of a $10-million grant program for Black-owned businesses in partnership with the Assn. for Enterprise Opportunity. Bolden-Pickens used the money to buy a shiny new pie press machine.
to make 900 to 1,400 nine- and five-inch pies. This year, with large family gatherings out of the question, more people are ordering smaller pies. Through it all, the community has had her back. Orders in April increased when small businesses were being left out of federal financial support. Once, a woman even bought a $2.25 pie and left $100; she didn’t want her change. That support has helped the bakery stay open. Still, with coronavirus cases surging again and normality still a distant dream,Harry and Sadie Patterson, Bolden-Pickens’ grandparents, moved from Louisiana in the 1940s to Central Avenue, the heart of Black L.A.
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