The Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was put in place to help small businesses survive the shutdown of many parts of everyday life, since their budgets were sure to be affected. Loans were made by area banks and guaranteed by the SBA to help those businesses avoid laying off employees.
Publicly-released data for loans under $150,000 shows that in just McCracken County, 850 loans were issued to businesses and 52 were issued to non-profit organizations, totaling $35,168,829. This allowed 5,794 to keep their jobs.
Data for loans over $150,000 was not specific, with the SBA listing ranges for the amount of money loaned. A total of 153 businesses and 11 non-profits in McCracken County got loans ranging from $150,000 to $10 million. This means the total amount loaned in these categories could be as low at $60 million and as high as about $145 million.
Susan Carr owns River City Printing on Kentucky Avenue, which opened in January 2018 and employs two others besides herself. After she heard about the opportunity for the loans, she contacted her representative at Paducah Bank, and a person from their Louisville branch followed up to help with required paperwork.
Carr said, "He sent me that paperwork, after about 4-5 days he said, 'it's been approved, and it will be deposited in your checking account.' We had the loan in about 7-10 days."
She said it was scary when the pandemic began because no businesses really knew how little or much they would be affected, but it turns out they were able to stay open and didn't experience a drop in work.
Carr said, "So, we had this as a buffer to help us, in case our volume went in half and we didn't have enough money to pay our bills. This really helped us."
(Note: The previous two sentences have been edited after learning that part of Carr's statement was mis-interpreted. Our apologies.)
"I think everybody has been pleasantly surprised how well it has worked and how quickly it came through for us. You never know when you're working with bureaucracy if it's gonna come through or not, Carr said. "I think it's given all of us a little bit of confidence that even if things slack off in the business, we can still make it through to still be in business after all of this is over."
Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce President Sandra Wilson told West Kentucky Star the program was, "a lifeline," to many area small businesses.
Wilson said, "I think it helped to drive home the importance of having a strong relationship with your local bank, having a CPA and having those resources available as a small business owner in times like this.
Carr praised Wilson and the Chamber of Commerce for their work during the pandemic to keep businesses informed about opportunities and programs such as this.
