The grant program awarded a total of $25,000 to five small business owners, five $5,000 grants to each winner, who can use the grant money to launch their business or initiate a new project within their established small business.
The winners of the Brother Small Business Grant Program are:
* AARF Pet Central, Susan Leisure (Stone Mountain, GA), is a community pet resource center that is progressively designed to assist families and individuals with pet adoptions, aimed to take homeless pets permanently out of the rescue cycle. They will use the grant funds to complete building renovations, such as ceiling and light installations.
* Arcade Brewery, Christopher Tourre (Chicago, IL), is a craft brewery that creates an interactive experience by focusing its online and public efforts around beer education, production transparency and crowdsourcing design for its beers, labels and packaging. They will use the grant funds to develop and improve their website and online presence.
* Curvy Riders, LLC, Angie Bertrand (Grand Junction, CO), designs and creates custom-fit apparel and accessories to meet the needs of female motorcycle owners and riders. This grant will allow Curvy Riders to have a sales booth for four days at the 2012 International Women & Motorcycling Conference to be held in Carson City, NV July 26-29, 2012.
* Misty Mountain Farms and Education, Elle Nova (Hillsboro, Oregon), produces organic goat dairy, organic chicken eggs, and organic local vegetables using sustainable farming practices targeted to market to the local community. It also provides revolving grants to vulnerable populations of women and children in immediate need. Thhey will use the grant funds to purchase sanitation and refrigeration equipment for the goat dairy, vegetables and eggs that the farm produces.
* Sugared Beauty, LLC, Sarah Zahn (Elizabethtown, PA), promotes a line of beauty and skincare products formulated from organic and food-grade ingredients targeted to women seeking healthy and organic products for their skin. They will use the grant funds to upgrade their product labeling through new office equipment, while creating a fully integrated e-commerce experience for its website including its own cart, auto-shipment program, blog and user-friendly customer service page.
To determine the size of the grant packages, Brother International Corporation and StartupNation conducted an online poll on StartupNation that revealed the majority of small business owners (61 percent) started with less than $5,000 in capital to launch their company.
To view the grant winners and their stories, visit www.startupnation.com
