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“Dear PoPville,
For many years leading up to 2020, my small Washington-based retail business happily responded to requests from parents of local schoolchildren to donate to their school / auction and fundraisers. The support of our neighbors has helped make our business sustainable.
I recently received a request for a donation from the parent of a well-resourced Capitol Hill public school and I want to let readers know that such requests are probably very difficult to meet at this time for businesses that managed to hang on this year.
It pains me to say that I can’t help but say that it’s also very uncomfortable for me to have to explain the reasons.
We had to take out a PPP loan from the government in order to rehire our employees last summer and we are still not sure it will be forgiven. We were fortunate enough to secure an economic disaster loan from the SBA which will hopefully enable us to weather the current storm, a 30 year debt commitment for homeowners personally, although the business fails. We are now praying for another round of P3s to avoid further layoffs.
I am grateful for the financial support my business has received over the past year, but I have an obligation to use it responsibly. Parents, please realize that if your school’s fundraising was such a great “business development opportunity” that you didn’t have to ask, I would be standing in line to give you my money. I used to donate because we could afford it and that’s a good thing to do.
I can’t wait to give back to the community as soon as we can, but it’s still not a good time for many small businesses in DC.
Truly,
One of your local retail store owners ”
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