{"id":201141,"date":"2026-05-24T09:15:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/201141\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T09:15:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:15:14","slug":"diverse-erie-awards-mini-grants-to-small-businesses-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/201141\/","title":{"rendered":"Diverse Erie awards mini grants to small businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:WJET Erie;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yourerie.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"WJET Erie\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/232C1E841BC0BB863E0E9B74B574D5BADEBDCEDD7912DF6C56EBCD799BAD61E9\/subgraphmysterio\/resizefill_w0_h40;quality_80;format_webp\/\"\/><\/a>Fri, May 22, 2026 at 9:15 PM UTC<img alt=\"\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_wjet_erie_articles_147\/419c90f1f15f6feca2eb8f4db76577da.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Diverse Erie awards mini grants to small businesses<\/p>\n<p>A local organization is working to strengthen Erie\u2019s diverse community, awarding grants to more than 30 businesses across the county.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Diverse Erie awarded nearly $540,000 in mini grants to small businesses owned by people of color.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"slk:Erie Port Authority launches new master plan for former Erie Coke site;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aol.com\/news\/erie-port-authority-launches-master-222628625.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0Erie Port Authority launches new master plan for former Erie Coke site\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The organization\u2019s Chief Administrative Officer, Gary Lee, said they received 70 applications and that 31 businesses \u2014 from auto-repair shops to restaurants \u2014 received money.<\/p>\n<p>He said the goal is for the grants to create a ripple effect in the community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe economic impact is projected to be $845,000, which, it\u2019s going to retain and support 100 jobs. We\u2019re always talking about creating new jobs, but we have to do what we need to do to retain those jobs,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n<p>Lee added that the mini grant awards also generate an estimated return of $1.57 for every dollar invested.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET\/WFXP\/YourErie.com.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yourerie.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET\/WFXP\/YourErie.com.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fri, May 22, 2026 at 9:15 PM UTC Diverse Erie awards mini grants to small businesses A local&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[88724,26360,88723,26269,136,138,137,58028,88725,78120],"class_list":["post-201141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-awarding-grants","tag-businesses","tag-diverse-community","tag-diverse-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-gary-lee","tag-local-organization","tag-mini-grants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}