New B2B Grants Available

Application portal opens August 18, 2021 for $250M in Back to Business (B2B) Grants for small businesses negatively impacted by COVID-19.

A vacant 576,000-square-foot warehouse in Manteno has found a new occupant and the company is seeking 600 workers. It appears the location, 1125 Sycamore Road, will house the packaging and distribution of supplies connected to COVID-19 pandemic. McKesson Corp., an Irving, Texas-based company, has signed a lease with property owner Cardinal Real Estate of Sherman Oaks, Calif. McKesson is advertising for 600 warehouse workers — specifically material handlers and machine operators — with pay at $17.45 per hour, including benefits. To support the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed (OWS), the company, through its centralized distribution network, will be involved with the movement of COVID-19 vaccines and ancillary supplies needed to administer vaccines.

SBA’s EIDL portal reopened May 4 and is accepting new EIDL applications on a limited basis only to provide relief to U.S. agricultural businesses.

In a flash poll of Kankakee County lenders on Monday, the Economic Alliance learned that in the federal Paycheck Protection Program’s initial $350 billion round of emergency funding, more than 1,500 regional businesses were served, with approved loans totaling more than $260 million. According to those polled, the majority of businesses had already received a disbursement. In this initial round, businesses served employ more than 30,000 individuals.

Change is the universe’s default. Progress, at its best, is positive change. As we together weather the unprecedented global reverberations presented by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, subsequent shelter-in-place precautions, and tremendous personal and business losses, it is tempting to abandon the notion of progress. But that would be a tragic mistake.