'Come Back Kits' to boost small business safety and morale

AMHERST — Mountains of hand sanitizer bottles. Stacks of masks. Gloves galore. Teresa Gilles picked her way through the piles Wednesday at her downtown office, sharing plans for putting the supplies in the hands of small-business owners who are struggling to get through the COVID-19 pandemic. "Maybe by getting some extra masks, it helps just a little bit," she said. "Maybe it gives them that little extra hand by having gloves or masks that makes all the difference." Gilles is the director of Main Street Amherst, a nonprofit that helps the city's business community. Wanting to help brick-and-mortar retailers and restaurants rebound after months of restrictions, she devised "Come Back Kits." At the end of June, about 400 businesses will get bags filled with paper towels, disinfectants, a gallon of sanitizer and protective gear. The goal is to help local owner-operators defray some of the unexpected costs of reopening, Gilles said. The kits were made possible by grants from the Community Foundation of Lorain County, the Nord Family Foundation, Nordson Foundation and the Lakeland Foundation. The Cleveland Clinic Foundation donated 700 cloth masks, while an anonymous donor gave N-95 masks. The bags will go to businesses in Amherst, Lorain, Oberlin, Wellington and possibly a fifth town in the county. Janet Haar, director of the Oberlin Business Partnership, said the supplies will be welcome because merchants are coping with big costs right now. For example, many are paying to install plexiglass shields, floor stickers, social-distancing signs, rearranging their layouts, limiting the number of customers allowed inside and changing the flow of traffic, she said. "It can be a little overwhelming for some of them," and it's been hard to know how to help businesses survive the changes brought on by the coronavirus, Haar said. The Come Back Kits probably won't save businesses financially, but they will provide an important morale boost, Main Street Wellington Director Jenny Arntz said. "It's one less thing they have to spend their money on," she said. "But even more it's about knowing there are people out there who care and want to help, to see them do well and be even better than before all the craziness happened" in March. The kits will help. What Arntz said small-town businesses need most is customers' confidence. She worries about fledgling businesses, those that have opened in the past two years, and were just getting established. But Arntz said the crisis may actually have a positive effect on locally owned stores and restaurants. "I do see the pandemic in a way forcing people to shop more local," she said. "They're not wanting to go and get exposed at Walmart and the big box stores, and they may not want to do Amazon." Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.