HERFayetteville continued yesterday with a business pitch competition for women-owned businesses at Segra Stadium. 

Eight competitors presented their businesses, describing a problem they saw, a solution they were meeting, their business models, and how they would implement the prize money if they won. 

At the end of the event, thanks to the City of Fayetteville, three checks were awarded – one for $7,500, one for $2,500 and one for $1,000. 

The winner of the $7,500 check was Gusto Napoletano. 

The winner of the $2,500 check was Evolv Dezigns. 

The winner of the $1,000 check was the Joy in Learning Discovery Center. 

The idea for HERWeek and HERFayetteville initially came from Jennifer Gerlock,  executive director of Leadership Frederick County and vice president of marketing and communications for the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce in Maryland. She started S.H.E. Week a couple of years ago in her area. 

“She is part of a founding committee that started SHEWeek for Frederick Maryland. They’ve received a lot of accolades. It’s been pretty successful. She’s also my cousin,” said Rebecca Jackson, the chief of staff and chief performance officer for City of Fayetteville. “So, we were chatting one night and I said, ‘That’s just wonderful.’ There’s lots of support for small business, local business, women-owned entrepreneurship, all of that. And I said, ‘Wow, that’d be really great to bring to the City of Fayetteville.’ So I started talking to some leadership in the City of Fayetteville, and with the City Council, mayor, mayor pro tem, city council members, leadership — they wanted to support something like that.”

Economic and Community Development Director Chris Cauley explained how Gerlock’s idea and Jackson’s suggestions to leadership meshed perfectly with the City’s goals and partnership with CEED.  “We’ve been partnering with CEED for a long, long time now to do what they do, not just with the Women’s Business Center, but with minority businesses. They helped with some COVID emergency lending. They’ve also been a huge partner to refer businesses to us that are eligible for our program, but then also for us to refer folks who aren’t quite there yet over to CEED, and they really do help those businesses grow,” Cauley said. 

“When CEED came forward … talking about, “Hey, we’d love to do something during [Women’s History Month] and really appreciate this, I was like, ‘Well, we’ve been trying to do this small business entrepreneurship pitch competition type idea because Fayetteville is outstanding with small business programs that are here,’” he said. “ I can’t take credit for that. I just got here … To see this opportunity working with a trusted community partner in CEED, it was like, absolutely it made sense. ‘What do you need to help make it happen?’. Luckily, the City Council gives me just enough money to … be able to support events like this, especially around small businesses … so that’s what we’re doing.”

The City of Fayetteville’s work to help small businesses is not confined to the pandemic or a celebratory month. Ongoing programs are available to assist businesspeople. “We do have programs available,” Cauley said. “Most of those programs are targeted at small businesses, but in Fayetteville’s service economy, a lot of folks get paid at the level we can use federal money to help support those businesses and help retain those jobs. Through the pandemic, we had over $600,000 dollars in grants that we gave out to small businesses. We still have that funding day in and day out to help small businesses.” 

“You just bring all the good heads together with the good ideas and everyone says, ‘I can add this.’ It’s like that perfect recipe,” Suzy Hrabovsky, executive director of CEED said. 

“What you find is that, women in our community, even though sometimes things separate us … there’s all commonalities between all of us, and we can bring all those pieces together and be together and celebrate together and lift each other up.”