Last updated: March 15, 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 hosting the Greater Boston Live virtual health and wellness fair on the first day of spring, March 20.
Take some time to register and find out about a variety of health and wellness offers. You can jump into a virtual chat to interact in person with representatives, ask questions via live text chat, watch a live stream presentation and gather all the information you need to get a little more exercise, Eat a little better and cause a little stress Less.
Partial live stream schedule
10:00 a.m. – Prevention of sports injuries with Dr. Almond, orthopedist from Excel
10:30 a.m. – 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 – Thrive at Home with Dave Tasto, Assisting Hands Home Care
12:00 p.m. – Hip replacement surgery on the same day – Dr. Grayson Connors, Excel Orthopedist 1:00 p.m. – Pilates with Mia Melendez, Metro North YMCA
1:30 pm – Nutritional Design with You in Mind, LLC – Voula Manousos
2.00 p.m. – Guided meditation with Om in the office
NOTE: We reserve the right to make changes
Register now to participate.
Participation in the event is free. Entrants who register by March 18 can win prizes including gift certificates and more. All participants receive our virtual pouch with special offers and discounts from the exhibitors at the fair.
The event will take place on Saturday, March 20th, from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM and will be hosted by Excel Orthopedics, Assisting Hands, Visiting Nurse & Community Care, Winchester Hospital, Melrose Wakefield Hospital and Artis Senior Living Lexington , Wegman’s, Sponsored, Integrative Psychology, Om in the Office, and Johnson Compounding and Wellness.
Learn more, register >>
Virtual network with multiple chambers: perfect your elevator spacing
Thursday March 25th
3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Your next big customer could be on your screen. How will you connect with them virtually?
Find out more, register here >>
Adjustments to accessibility for companies with fewer than 20 employees
On Wednesday, February 24th at 9:00 a.m., the Small Business Administration will establish a 14-day exclusive loan application period for businesses and nonprofits with fewer than 20 employees searching for funds under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).
This gives lenders and community partners more time to work with the smallest businesses to submit their applications, while also ensuring that larger PPP-eligible businesses still have time to apply for and receive assistance before the program starts on Jan. March expires.
SBA also announced four additional changes to open the PPP to more underserved small businesses than ever before. As these changes are implemented, SBA will work with community partners to improve the “digital doorstep” for emergency relief and conduct extensive public relations for stakeholders. And SBA will strengthen its relationships with lender partners to advance equity goals, efficiently deliver funding, and prevent fraud, waste and abuse.
SBA will:
- Enable sole proprietorships, independent contractors, and the self-employed to get more financial assistance by revising the PPP’s funding formula for these categories of applicants.
- Removing exclusive restrictions on PPP access to small business owners with previous convictions for non-fraudulent crimes in line with a non-partisan Congressional proposal;
- Remove PPP access restrictions for small business owners who have had difficulty paying student loans by removing student loan debt as an exclusion from participating in the PPP; and
- Ensure access for non-citizenship small business owners legally resident in the United States by making it clear that they can use the individual tax identification number (ITIN) to apply for the PPP.
A major goal of Congress for the final round of PPP was to reach out to low and middle income small businesses (LMI) who have not received the necessary relief that a forgivable PPP loan provides. Congress made a provision of $ 15 billion for small and LMI borrowers. With the existing guidelines, only USD 2.4 billion was made available for small LMI borrowers in the current round, also because companies with more than 20 employees receive a disproportionate amount of money in wealthy and LMI areas. The less than 20% exclusivity period coupled with the changes to expand sole proprietorship, ITINs, returning citizens, and student loan debt will help us achieve the goals of Congress.
Businesses can find a participating lender through SBA’s Lender Match tool.
New guide to the paycheck protection program
The Small Business Administration recently released new guidelines for reopening the paycheck protection program. These guidelines take the form of a tentative final rule, a tentative final rule for second-drawing PPP loans, and a guideline for access to capital for minority, underserved, veteran and women-owned companies. Additionally, the press release highlights the programmatic changes made to PPP through the recently passed federal incentive.
Some key program changes include:
- Allows previous recipients to get a “second draw” from PPP
- Makes 501 (c) 6 nonprofit applicants among other types of organizations
- Allows borrowers to set their covered loan term to any length from 8 to 24 weeks for additional flexibility
- Adds costs to eligible forgivable effort, including costs for adaptive operations, costs for property damage, technology operations, supplier costs, and worker protection costs
- Clarifies that PPP loans are tax exempt and eligible expenses paid with PPP proceeds are tax deductible
- Caps First Draw Loan of $ 10M and Second Draw Loan of $ 2M
- Allows accommodation and catering companies to obtain loans that are calculated on an average monthly payroll of 3.5
As with previous implementations of PPP, businesses can apply for a forgivable loan through SBA lenders and should speak to their lender to discuss an application. Starting today, municipal lenders (municipal development financial institutions, minority depositaries, certified development companies and microcredit intermediaries, more here) can offer PPP loans to applicants who have not yet received a loan. On January 13th, these lenders will be able to offer loans to “Second Draw” applicants. All lenders are authorized to offer the program shortly. The date has not yet been announced. For more information on PPP, forms, and other information, please visit www.sba.gov/ppp.
YourArlington.com has been serving Arlington, Massachusetts news and opinions since 2006. Editor Bob Sprague is a past editor at The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, and Arlington Advocate. Read more at https://www.yourarlington.com/about.