What's Happening This Week in Downtown Jamaica

*Businesses: last week was a big week for business news. Please be sure to scroll to the business section in the middle of this e-newsletter for the latest updates.*

What We’ve Been Up To Lately  Although we’re following the official directive to work from home, our BID has been busy remotely working for our Jamaica Avenue business district, merchants and customers. Here's just a handful of things we’ve been up to lately: We continue to update our open list of restaurants and essential businesses and we’re pleased to report that we now have 41 that are open to serve the Jamaica community. Please remember to support your local restaurant or retailer during this time when making purchases. Local retail needs your support now more than ever.

We continue to track state government directives, research business best practices and then consolidate and communicate all of this info to our business community via our frequently updated COVID-19 page on our website and email blasts.   Last week we handed out masks provided by Council Member I. Daneek Miller’s office to several of our open essential businesses.

We raised a new set of cheerful yellow decorative banners up on Jamaica Avenue. We hope they bring a dash of brightness to your day. Special thanks to the following sponsors for helping keep Jamaica Avenue beautiful by supporting this program: Boost Mobile, Golden Krust, All Nations Apostolic Tabernacle and King Manor Museum. View our Instagram post here. Our contracted Clean Team continues to keep Jamaica Avenue clean and litter free. Beyond sweeping our sidewalks and curbs, and regularly emptying our trash cans, these hardworking Clean Team members are also wiping down and sanitizing street furniture.  In the background, we’re hard at work on our new BID website, which we look forward to revealing to our Jamaica Center BID community early this summer. We’re also working on our 2020-2021 Action Plan and are in discussions with several of our neighboring nonprofits to jointly address sanitation and food access issues in our business district. Exciting initiatives lie ahead which we are excited to share as they roll out.

Another Home Town Hero We’re back with another hometown hero, someone in Jamaica who is going over and beyond during these trying times to help their community. You may recall that a couple of weeks ago we featured Executive Director of King Manor Museum , Kelsey Brow, who was sewing PPE gowns for local hospitals . This week we would like to feature local merchant Henry Arroyo, better known as Henry of Henry’s Carrot Cakes , one of the delicious food purveyors located inside of Jamaica Market. A couple of weeks ago, Henry baked over 100 of his delectable carrot cakes and delivered them to one of our local Queens hospitals. This isn’t the first time Henry has shown generosity to our community. Last November, he donated two carrot cakes to our own BID’s Annual Meeting (trust us, not a single slice remained). We tip our hats to Henry today and encourage you to pay him a visit at Jamaica Market located at 90-40 160th Street once he reopens. (We’ll announce his reopening on our Open Business page here .)  Have a Home Town Jamaica Hero you’d like to nominate to be featured in our next e-newsletter? Send us an email with their details! We think Jamaica’s the best neighborhood and we want to toot horns!

Three Things to Do During Social Distancing  Fill. Out. The. Census! Yes, we’re being repetitive about this because it’s really important. Our community has had a very low census return rate and we can do better. The Census determines our representation levels in government, how much funding our community receives, and so much more. Let’s not shortchange ourselves by not filling it out. It’s fast and easy and you can do it online. Check the link out here and get it done. And then remind your friends and family to do the same. Experience the Arts, Jamaica style: We point again to the wonderful cultural gem known as JCAL in the heart of our BID, which has been rolling out a slew of online programming. Check out the video recap and subscribe for more of JCAL Online here. JCAL has also launched #jcalAmericanStories, an online platform for snapshots of life and creativity from across the U.S. as well as right here in NYC and Queens. They want to know your answers to the following questions: What does creativity look like in your life? How do you tell your stories through art? Submit your art and tell your stories with #jcalAmericanStories here.  Get in a good place with Headspace. The company Headspace is offering free meditation and mindfulness exercises to educators, health care professionals, and New Yorkers who are out of work. (If you are unemployed, you can get a free one-year subscription to the Headspace app). Free curated content available for all New Yorkers continues to be available at headspace.com/ny.

Business Resource Section

Business Reopening Guidelines Last week was full of news for New York businesses regarding new reopening guidelines. NY State released a very comprehensive page detailing the process to open regions by business categories and every business should review it to be prepared. The page includes a new tool businesses can use to confirm whether they are eligible to open, as well as safety standards that must be implemented to ensure employee and customer safety, broken down by industry type. We’re linking to the retail one here . A lot of industry trade groups ( National Retail Federation , International Council of Shopping Centers , and Retail, Restaurant and Hospitality specialist Streetsense ), have also developed helpful guides and toolkits that businesses can use as they craft their reopening plans. To make it easy for our local businesses, we’ve consolidated links to all of these guides on our COVID-19 webpage in a new section titled “Reopening Guidelines”.  In addition to these published guidelines, we’d like to draw your attention to a very comprehensive series of Reboot & Restart webinars Queens Economic Development Corporation (QEDC) has lined up through June, based on the subjects of reopening and operating businesses under current restrictions. All of these webinars are FREE. Please take advantage of them. Learn more and register for the Reboot & Restart s eries here .

NY State's Mandatory Business Safety Plans Businesses that are currently open as an “essential” business and those “non-essential” businesses that have been closed must develop a written Safety Plan outlining how their workplace will prevent the spread of COVID-19. Per NY State guidance, businesses may complete the linked template to fulfill this requirement, or they may develop their own Safety Plans. Plans are not required to be submitted to a state agency for approval, but the plan must be retained on the premises of the business, and must be made available to the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) or local health or safety authorities in the event of an inspection. Jamaica Center BID is working on our own Safety Plan this week to ensure our BID team stays healthy and is able to continue safely serving our community.  Businesses, as you construct your safety plan, you might find this webinar to be helpful, as well as the resources we mentioned in the prior article.

Need Business Help? You're Covered. Just a reminder that there are many FREE sources for counsel/advisory offered by local nonprofits for the business community, and * three* of them are located in downtown Jamaica:  Jamaica location! York College has a Small Business Development Center. They can provide free assistance with reconstructing financial records, preparing financial statements and submitting SBA loan applications. More info here.  Jamaica location! NYC Department of Business Services Business Solutions Centers can also assist with these applications. Our nearest business solution’s center is located in downtown Jamaica on Sutphin Blvd. Contact them here.   Jamaica location! Greater Jamaica Development Corporation's offering one-to-one business appointments with their business services staff, book here or email: BSG@gjdc.org  Queens Economic Development Corporation: book appointments here.   Legal Counsel for Businesses: Free Covid-19 Small Business Law Clinic run by the City Bar Justice Center.   For now, all services are being offered remotely by the above-listed entities.

Loans and Grants Round Up We’ve updated our COVID-19 webpage with the latest loans and grants. Here’s a few quick highlights:  LISC Grants & Loans : Today’s the deadline for nonprofit Local Initiative Support Corporation’s grant application for round three of funding. LISC is prioritizing women and minority owned businesses. LISC’s applications open and close on a regular basis. Please sign up for email alerts from this nonprofit. Grant information and FAQ here . LISC is also a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) and are therefore able to issue business loans. LISC is currently accepting applications for MWBEs, WBEs and nonprofits in our service area. To apply, fill out the following survey .  FedEx just released a new “Support Small” business grant program. Info here . Tru Fund Financial Services and Dime Community Bank are a few additional entities who have issued grant programs—visit our Covid-19 page to link up to these opportunities.  If you were one of the fortunate small businesses to receive a PPP loan, you’ll want to keep track of stringent guidelines to ensure your loan is forgiven. The SBA and Treasury Dept. released the PPP loan forgiveness guidelines and application on May 15. The following page by national payroll provider ADP may be helpful to read as it contains a section on loan forgiveness FAQ’s and a Loan Forgiveness Estimator Tool.

Let's Get Past the Digital Divide If you don’t have a web and/or social media presence, its is very hard for your customers to know how to support you during this time. In the coming year (when safe), our BID will be going store to store to offer our in-person services helping businesses establish a social media presence. If you’re interested in this, please email jaluri@jamaicacenter.org to be notified once the initiative starts. In the meantime, we’re drawing your attention to Greater Jamaica Development Corporation’s (GJDC) partnership with GoDaddy to help Jamaica-based businesses develop a web presence. We here at the BID feel it is so important that businesses have an online presence that we will personally offer to help any business within our BID that participates in GJDC’s course with photography, copywriting and editing assistance to help get you up and running. A Webinar for the program will take place this Thursday at 4 p.m. Sign up here and learn more details here .

General Community News

Testing Services New York's diagnostic testing criteria have been expanded further. Testing is available to:  Any individual who has COVID-19 symptoms  Any individual who has had contact with a person known to be positive with COVID-19  Any individual who is subject to a precautionary or mandatory quarantine  Any individual who is employed as a health care worker, nursing home worker or first responder  Any essential worker who directly interacts with the public while working  Any individual who would return to the workplace in Phase 1 of the state's reopening plan  Find a location coronavirus.health.ny.gov/find-test-site-near-you — The state has also partnered with Google Maps to display testing site results. New Yorkers can search "COVID testing near me" on Google Maps to easily find the nearest testing sites. Please remember you must always schedule an appointment to get a COVID-19 diagnostic test by calling 1-888-364-3065 or your healthcare provider.

Jobs  Contact tracers will be an important part of keeping the coronavirus pandemic under control. The state has announced plans to hire thousands of contact tracers. If you’d like to be considered, you can apply here . The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health launched a free online course to train contact tracers.

For More Coronavirus Information from the City of New York If you would like to receive regular text alerts from City government regarding the novel Coronavirus, you can sign up by texting COVID to 692-692 .

About Business and Event Promotions in this Newsletter : Businesses and organizations located in the Jamaica Avenue Commercial District between Sutphin Blvd and 169th Street are invited to submit promotional information for possible inclusion in our newsletter. Events happening near or immediately adjacent to the Jamaica Avenue Commercial District may also be considered for inclusion on a case-by-case basis. We reserve the right to reject or edit materials for length, style, timeliness, and appropriateness. This newsletter serves to inform our community about events, opportunities and commercial activity in Downtown Jamaica, within specifically the Jamaica Center BID boundaries.

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