Offering Rural Small Business Owners A Chance to Grow
They told me that there were grants and guidance available for small business owners like me and encouraged me to reach out. (...) ” -Jimmy Small Business Owner
Jimmy Richter opened his antique shop, Little Boxes Vintage, in the Mercantile Center in Gays Mills, Wisconsin in 2021. Jimmy, along with his wife Charissa and young son Cecil, had moved to the area from Colorado, where he had also had a store front for his business.
Thanks to the supportive community in Gays Mills and the CrawfordCounty area, the family business continued to grow. When anopportunity to move to a significantly larger space in the samebuilding came along, Jimmy was excited to make the move.However, the timing wasn’t great for Little Boxes Vintage, as it alsocoincided with the post-holiday slump that many small businessesknow all too well. These conditions made moving and theexpenses that come with it a difficult prospect. “We were feeling the crunch of the move coming and all of the expenses that came with it right as we were coming out of slow season,” Jimmy reflected.
“I had heard about Couleecap from a good friend,” Jimmy explained. “They told me that there were grants and guidance available for small business owners like me and encouraged me to reach out. When I did, Alex (Couleecap’s Business and Income Manager)was incredibly helpful and understanding of my small business and our situation.”
With grants received to both help pay for rent in the new location as well as expenses, Little Boxes Vintage was able to expand into their new space on solid footing.
“The grants helped us free up funds to support another small business that makes shelves that we needed to display our merchandise,” Jimmy shared. “It (the grants) put us in such abetter position to move forward with expanding the shop andgetting more items to sell in the shop. We are grateful to beable to continue doing this work in a community that we loveand grateful for the support from Couleecap!”
