Four small businesses from Brevig Mission, Gambell, and Nome will share more $105,000 in startup funds dispensed through this year’s Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation’s Small Business Initiative grant.
NSEDC’s Small Business Initiative is in its seventh year, and at the distribution event Wednesday afternoon at Old St. Joe’s in Nome, Dora Hughes’ business Opiq Adventures was the big winner, receiving a largest of the four grants at $35,000.
Hughes said her “ecotourism” business aims to mix environmentally-minded tourism with unique cultural experiences from around the Norton Sound.
“We basically want to have them work with other businesses [in the region] and get them to experience part of our heritage and culture,” Hughes said of her future clients. “For instance, if they’re having Eskimo dancing practice in Teller. Our approach is going to be to try to make the sites come alive.”
Other grantees include Sonja Callahan, who received $20,000 for Midnight Sun Motors, a used car dealership and buyers agent service that aims to help people buy cars online.
Eddie Tocktoo received $25,000 for his D&K Shop business, a repair shop to be based in Brevig Mission to serve as a small engine and appliance repair garage for customers in Shishmaref, Wales and Teller. Tocktoo said the shop will also offer to rent space for others to perform their own repair work.
And Erika and Troy Apatiki took home $25,000 to start Waam’s Café, a combination restaurant and community center in Gambell that they hope will open by March.
“We’ll be serving uncommon items in Gambell, such as espressos [and] lattes,” Erika said.
“…[And] a variety of sandwiches,” Troy added. “We’ll be doing other … activities such as raffles, dance nights, movie nights … something to get the community together.”
In all, 22 applicants submitted proposals for grants this year. Judges analyzed business plans and budgets to whittle that number down to just six finalists—with four winners walking away with grants from $20,000 to $35,000.
Paul Ivanoff III coordinates the program for NSEDC and announced the grantees at Wednesday’s event. He said the grants help spur economic development in the region by letting local entrepreneurs submit ideas they think can work in their communities.
“With each small business idea comes an inherent risk of whether or not they’ll succeed, and each community has different strengths and different weaknesses,” Ivanoff explained. “Each applicant tried to figure out what their strengths [are] and what can be successful in the community. And that is a common theme … ‘this can be successful in our community’ and this is something that we would like to try.”
The winners will have two years to complete their business plan and use their grant money. They’ll also work with NSEDC to refine their business plans as the new ventures begin to grow.
In the seven years of the SBI grant program, NSEDC reports it’s given away $750,000 to 36 small businesses.
