{"id":216771,"date":"2026-05-01T16:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/216771\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T16:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T16:25:08","slug":"love-local-small-business-expo-supports-hyperlocal-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/216771\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Local Small Business Expo supports hyperlocal businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Small businesses across New York face challenges from rising rents, property taxes and major online platforms like Amazon. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic still persist, and post-pandemic relief has dried up.<\/p>\n

Perri Salka, owner of the WonderMart in Greenpoint and lead organizer of Shop Small Greenpoint, believes that North Brooklyn-based small businesses face a unique set of difficulties. \u201cMostly because of the impact of all the high rise construction. The rate in property tax goes up every time a new building goes up,\u201d she said. When she opened her small store four years ago, her first property tax bill was in the range of $800. This year, her property taxes were almost $5,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Greenpoint waterfront has undergone the rapid development of high rise buildings. Three more residential towers<\/a> were announced along the East River in Greenpoint last fall, with construction planned for this coming summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The small business expo is just one aspect of a larger Love Local initiative that the NBCC leads. Between online and print advertising, word of mouth and a series of events at local businesses, the Love Local campaign has a simple aim. \u201cBefore you jumped on the computer and ordered something from Amazon, maybe you walked around the block and saw if it was in your local shop. We\u2019re trying to get people to walk into local businesses, support local businesses,\u201d said Samulski.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NBCC received a grant from the U.S. Small Business Association, which funded a significant number of events.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Small<\/a>Small business owners walked the expo floor, asking questions and networking. Photo: Ella Spungen<\/p>\n

In addition to the Love Local project, the NBCC works closely with the North Brooklyn Angels, a hyperlocal nonprofit organization that operates a mobile soup kitchen, providing 2,000 meals to the community each week. North Brooklyn Angels had a table at the expo, run by their volunteers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be hyperlocal. All we can do is look to our neighbors. We have to do good for each other, so that\u2019s small business and that\u2019s organizations that actually focus on our community,\u201d said volunteer Sophia Schneider.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring the pandemic, when we lost so many of our small businesses and midsize businesses. We looked around and we saw open storefronts. It added to the sense of desperation, like, wait a second, what happened? We\u2019re not the same community that we used to be. We lost an energy that was helping us stay together and drive us forward,\u201d said Samulski.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of small businesses being the heart and soul of a community like the North Brooklyn community goes without saying, but I also think that small businesses are the heart and soul of all major cities,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you take the time to peel away the layers of every city\u2019s onion, you\u2019ll realize that there are small businesses that are driving certain aspects of why that city continues to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Small businesses across New York face challenges from rising rents, property taxes and major online platforms like Amazon.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[85426,98,100,99,288,53732,70825,9,24,76549,82293,63,6446,2578,2579,4799],"class_list":["post-216771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-arlo","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-business","tag-ella-spungen","tag-has-teaser","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-north-brooklyn-angels","tag-north-brooklyn-chamber-of-commerce","tag-nyc","tag-paul-samulski","tag-premium","tag-premium-content","tag-small-businesses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}