Fort Wayne Black owned businesses doing well despite COVID-19

Research from the Federal Bank of New York says a little more than 40% of Black-owned businesses closed during the pandemic.

New cases.

The pandemic has been harsh on businesses, but it's heavily impacting black owned ones.despite the many challenges faced by businesses in fort wayne, some have found ways to stay afloat.fox 55's jentill neal tells us how they're doing it.

When you look around the health hut, you have majority of all of your health needs- everything natural.owner david thomas says natural products was the niche for his business.

>00:01:34-00:01:59"we offer those products which were somewhat timely during this period."when the pandemic hit, thomas didn't anticipate it, but quickly adapted putting their website to use and relying on loyal customers.

However, others were not as successful.research from the federal bank of new york says a little more than 40 percent of black owned businesses closed during the pandemic.> 00:04:41-00:05:04"our online sales have went up, but it's following those trends and adapting to those trends that will allow businesses to survive, and relationship building.

We have a relationship with our customer base that has allowed our customers to share with other potential customers."the health hut parking lot now provides a space for other black owned businesses to showcase what they're offering to keep them from closing.it's thanks to a collaboration with brandee collins who is the ceo of ladies building together, which focuses on providing marketing and promotions for events and businesses,> 03:50:00-03:50:10"it works hand in hand for an established business front and the ones who probably work out of their homes who may be do things off of facebook or only do social media."by doing this, it's made collins' businesses successful- the plan is to keeping paying it forward."we have another event coming up actually working with fairfield.

We will have a fairfield block committee going on kind of like a fall festival in a sense on the 24th of october.

In fort wayne, jentill neal fox 55 news.

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