YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Lashara Kornegay has hopes of launching a comprehensive outreach center that is geared toward helping those with low and moderate incomes who may need skills in child care and emergency health services.
She has most recently worked with the Oak Hill Collaborative, a nonprofit community enrichment and educational center, to help with establishing the businesses. Now, Kornegay is at a point where she wants to market these services more aggressively.
“I’m a nurse, and I have a CPR business that helps train for preparedness, and also I have a child care business,” Kornegay said. “I need help promoting and advertising and to fine-tune my vision.”
Kornegay was among dozens who attended the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County’s inaugural Business Resource Fair on Monday. The event featured 20 vendors that provide various levels of assistance to small businesses and emerging entrepreneurs looking to set out on their own.
“Community members will find a wide range of resources and organizations to connect with that will help them on their path as a small-business owner or somebody who is looking to get into business or entrepreneurship,” said Erin Phenester, the library’s chief experience officer. “We’ve got local, city and state representatives here, a lot of nonprofits and some for-profits here.”
Stuart Gibbs, business and nonprofit librarian, said the agencies include those that provide small-business development resources, tax consulting, marketing, start-up funding opportunities and more. “A little bit of everything a small business might need,” he said.
Gibbs said every business could always use something to help it grow, so he thought it was a good idea to bring these resources together and host a public expo at the library. “Having the right information at the right time to make the right decision for your business is the most important thing anybody can do.”
Savannah Berk said she attended because she is looking to expand her business and open a coffee shop to augment her already popular baked French macarons. “I’m a new small business and I’m looking to expand,” she said. “I want to learn more about the resources that Youngstown offers. I’m blown away by everything there is to offer small businesses.”
Her company, Sav’s Macs, currently works out of the kitchen incubator on Elm Street in Youngstown. “I just started the business about a year and a half ago,” she said.
Vendors at the event provided information on services such as tax information, licensing, business consultation, incentives for new businesses, business training, and industry networking, among others.
Mike Rubino, a business mentor for Score, attended the event to emphasize that the organization is still active in the Mahoning Valley, despite the local chapter recently being combined with Akron.
“We’re trying to rebuild the Youngstown area,” Rubino said. Score, a subsidiary of the U.S. Small Business Administration, relies on professional mentors that assist business with services free of charge. “Our true purpose is to help small businesses with the difficult task of getting their business off the ground,” he said. Attorneys, accountants, sales, marketing professionals, for example, donate their time as mentors through the program.
Other resource organizations at the event included the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber; Brite Energy; The city of Youngstown Department of Health and its Department of Planning and Economic Development division; the Ohio Small Business Development Center at Youngstown State University; The Ohio Minority Business Center; Valley Economic Development Partners; Ohio Department of Taxation; Ohio Department of Commerce; Oak Hill Collaborative; Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation; JobsOhio; YSU Office of Community Engagement; LindenPointe Development Corp.; Intentional Development Group; Economic Action Group; and Community Legal Services.
“We’ve done some really great work this year for 2024,” said Carmella Williams, chief engineer of visionary leadership at Intentional Development, a new nonprofit organization. “We’ve given out about $240,000 in grants and technical assistance, and we’ve done about 240 hours of counseling time,” she said.
Williams said her organization wants to serve as a bridge between government, philanthropy, and business, and hopes events such as this helps to boost awareness of IDG and other organizations. “We just hired three new people, and we’re really excited about the growth.”
Pictured at top: Stuart Gibbs and Erin Phenester.