Page 48 - BusinessWest February 20, 2023

Gabrielle Gould and Claudia Pazmany have worked tirelessly to promote Amherst
and the surrounding area as a destination.
Leah Martin Photography
examples of what they were able to do together:
• Raise close to a half-million dollars and distribute what became known as Relief and Resiliency microgrants to 67 small businesses throughout Amherst, the lion’s share of the money coming from residents, with donations from $25 to $50,000;
• Buy bulk PPE (masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, and more) at a time when it was difficult for businesses to attain it, and deliver it to businesses;
• Create a virtual tip jar so residents could support the many who were out of work — rom artists to hairdressers to bartenders;
• Launch the Dinner Delights
program, through which the two agencies raised more than $100,000 and used those finds to purchase dinners and lunches from area restaurants to keep them in business, and hand out the meals to families in need;
• Provide those same families with gift bags filled with toys, puzzles, and gift cards purchased from a wide array of businesses — from hair salons to convenience stores — to help those small ventures;
• Continue some time-honored traditions, albeit virtually, such as the lighting of the Merry Maple, a maple tree on the North Common, during the holidays;
• Encourage takeout business at a time when the restaurants needed it and when there was some resistance to such efforts from the colleges and elsewhere in the community;
• Register close to 200 individuals within the business community, including many for whom English
is their second language, for vaccination; and
• Provide assistance with state and federal grants. Together, by Gould’s estimates, they were able to help businesses secure more than $2.1 million in state and federal grants by sitting down with them and helping them write grants.
“Without our collaborative help and willingness to sit in these offices at 7 o’clock at night with business owners with masks on and help them upload their documents and write grants, I think you would
have seen a lot more businesses throughout Amherst close,” Gould said. “While many people were
at home staying safe, which they should have been doing, Claudia and I came to work every day; we showed up, we went out in public, we hand-delivered grants.”
Pazmany agreed, noting that
both agencies looked beyond their respective missions and beyond the downtown itself to help a decimated community at a time of dire need.
“We all had PPE in our cars for
two months — and we delivered it door-to-door,” she recalled. “I looked beyond my membership, and she looked beyond the downtown, and together we were able to look at the collective impact of our shared work around the entire town of Amherst.”
As significant as the work during the pandemic was, this partnership, as noted earlier, is about much more than those efforts.
Indeed, it’s about ongoing work to put Greater Amherst on the map and make it even more of a destination for visitors and home for businesses of all kinds. Here again, the agencies have worked independently of one another, but mostly in concert, to get a number of things done.
Things like the Drake, a venue that has brought people from across New England and beyond to downtown
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48 FEBRUARY 20, 2023
BusinessWest