Ashland Chamber & Travel Ashland Update
Greetings From the Ashland Chamber,

We know this was a very busy week for everyone as we continue to make adjustments and work towards the future. Before moving into Friday updates, the Governor’s office would like information and feedback from our business community about reopening. What information do you need to open? What questions do you have? Please let us know your thoughts so we can send them to the Governor’s office. You can email them to  members@ashlandchamber.com  or send them directly to:  https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/contact.aspx  

This week there were some critical efforts taken at the Federal, State and Local levels to support businesses and work toward economic recovery:
  • The PPPL and EIDL funds were extended through Congress. For more information please visit: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/coronavirus-relief-options/paycheck-protection-program
  • Governor Kate Brown released her Framework to Reopen Oregon. Next week there will be more information about this framework and the Ashland Chamber has formed a task force to look at what that means for our community and businesses and will keep you all informed
  • The State of Oregon Emergency Review Board approved $10 million for Loans and Grants for small businesses. Distribution and guidelines will be made available next week and we will send them out as soon as we have them.
  • The City of Ashland extended payments on utility, Food & Beverage Tax and TOT. For more information contact the City.
 
From the Chamber:
  • Over 25 members joined us for a Zoom Greeters meeting on Friday morning at 8am. If you are interested, please contact Dana Preston at members@ashlandchamber.com for the link.
  • The first Steering Committee for the Summer Promotions and Event series met to create overall framework. We had a wonderful meeting with a number of exciting ideas! Subcommittees will begin meeting next week. Let us know if you are interested in hearing more or participating.
  • We redesigned the “How Support Local Now” page on ashlandchamber.com for better user-friendliness and to better categorize businesses– please contact us if you’d like to be featured on those pages and are not currently listed.

Resources:
The following are a few resources we are aware of. We want to send them out to you and hope you find them useful. We do our best to ensure that they are relevant to you, but sometimes understand that they may not apply to your business or may not be a right fit. We would rather send more opportunities and have them not be applicable than miss an opportunity if we assume such:
  • Webinar: Safely Returning to Work with OSHA Officials: As we prepare to reopen businesses across Oregon we must do so safely. Safe workplaces in the time of COVID-19 will require new systems and ways of working. We all have questions about what safety officials will expect from employers. Join us for a webinar with officials from Oregon OSHA who will give us guidance for how to have safe workplaces and to answer your questions. Register HERE 
  • The following small business grant information was shared with us. We are not familiar directly with the organization, but they are the Local Initiatives Support Corps. Please read their Grant FAQS and see if this applies to your business: GRANT INFO & FAQS

Thank you very much and we look forward to connecting next week.

Sincerely,
Ashland Chamber and Travel Ashland Staff

Thank you to the Ashland Chamber’s
Partners in Emergency Preparedness and Recovery