Reaching Out to Entrepreneurs to Save Families from Tragedy

Batten down the hatch. Rain and wind tomorrow. If you don’t have a hatch that requires proper battens, at least reduce the weight of the grille cover.

For what matters now.

Statistics are used to compare and measure, to reinforce, to illuminate, to inform and to advise.

So seeing the two raw stats side by side pretty much jumped out of my bottomless scroll of unread mail this morning.

Black entrepreneurs start with an average of $35,000, according to financial planning website bankrate.com. White entrepreneurs, on the other hand, typically start with an average of $107,000.

It’s a huge disparity.

Yet the number of black-owned businesses in the United States continues to grow. In 2020, the year of the pandemic, the number of Black-owned businesses was about 141,000, up 5% from 2019.

To keep this trend moving in a positive direction, local entrepreneurs working at SG Atkins Community Development Corporation’s Enterprise Center on Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, have announced on February 3rd that they have a good business plan and enough money. Hold seminars aimed at matching funds. Help to get it done.

Winston-Salem State University’s Carol Davis, who leads the Enterprise Center, said in a news release: “There will be banks, city programs, and non-profit funders. Finally, there will be speed dating where companies can sit down with funders and discuss their funding needs. We have made strong progress in breaking down economic barriers, but we still have a long way to go and we must walk together.”

Clearly Davis knows statistics well.

As for the rest of us, here’s the obvious kicker: A strong entrepreneurial spirit across communities helps everyone. pay a salary. Strong businesses create jobs (and wealth) and support a solid middle class.

A rising tide lifts all boats – or at least it should.

The event will feature keynote speakers and a meet and greet. Questions can be sent to Carol Davis at davisc@wssu.edu.

To register, please visit www.eventbrite.com/e/black-business-summit-where-access-to-capital-and-small-business-meet-registration-513105190437?aff=ebdssbdestsearch.

If you’ve seen the WINSTON-SALEM-GoFundMe page, you can go in many directions.

Some are goofy, like “I Need Booze Money” and “Buy Me Dave Grohl.” (Yeah, they actually happened.)

However, most of the time, popular crowdsourcing sites are used as honest attempts to do something good. Some people may need lifesaving medical care.

Also, appeals can break your heart.

One such effort began last week following the shooting of a 12-year-old girl in Winston-Salem.

Philo Hill Middle School student Enedy Penaloza Morales died in hospital after being shot in Weston Park on January 15.

In the days that followed, the police complained of a lack of cooperation, incompetence and outright hostility to the investigation.

That’s fair and infuriating.

But the crux of the matter is that a 12-year-old was fatally injured in broad daylight at a park. And her parents are heartbroken.

Lowry – State Comptroller Beth Wood broke several days of silence on Monday by admitting she made a mistake in deciding to walk away from the scene of the Dec. 8 accident.

It’s a crash that the police call “property damage,” a collision in which no one is injured and that costs someone a few bucks to rectify.

Unless the driver in question decides to fix the bolt before police arrive. Raleigh police cited Democrat Wood for the unsafe move. And when it was revealed last week that she had left the scene, the stink started.

“As I was leaving, I made a sharp right turn and accidentally hit a parked car,” Wood said in a statement Monday. I was.

“It was a grave mistake. I regret my decision.”

Mistakes, as we see them, are rounding errors or poor punctuation. Leaving the scene of a car accident, even if no one was hurt, is a clear lack of judgment and character, a 16-year-old knows all too well.