Jill Scarborough McLaury started Bright Futures Learning Services in her grandmother's kitchen to provide ABA therapy for autistic children as young as two. SBA loans and PPP funding helped the business survive and grow during the pandemic, with support from the West Virginia Small Business Development Center.
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I'm Jill Scarborough McLaury. I'm the CEO of Bright Futures Learning Services. Bright Futures provides applied behavior analysis or ABA therapy services to children with autism and their families. So we provide early intensive intervention. So starting with children as young as two and work one on one with them to really change their trajectory, to help them learn how to learn so that they can achieve their best outcome. Bright Future started in my grandmother's kitchen, and I was only wanting to serve children with autism, so I really had no idea how to run a business. And when it was time to build a new building, thankfully, my lender introduced us to the SBA's 504 program that enabled us to build a new building custom to meet our children's needs. We knew when Jill approached us looking for a loan solution, we knew we had to find a very personalized solution, and we were able to do that with the SBA loan program. When Covid hit, it was devastating. It was devastating for our families who are relying on intensive services for their kids to really help their children. And it was scary for us because we're family here. And so to figure out how to keep everyone paid through this storm was really, really scary. But thanks to my contacts with the SBA who were sending us information immediately about the payroll protection program and the EIDL loan program, I was able to have the resources available to us that kept every single person paid this entire time. We at the West Virginia Small Business Development center have been able to help GEO and Bright Futures in a number of ways. First of all, with getting her loan packaging together, helping with her PPP during this pandemic situation, we've had the past year and a half just ongoing coaching and services and connecting with her in any way we can. The folks at the SBA have truly taken a special interest in us. They understand the importance of the work that we're doing and how serving children with autism has a greater impact on our entire economy. And so several of our SBA contacts will personally contact me and make sure that I have information available to us and that we were one of the first in line for the payroll protection program because our banker knew how important it was to be able to keep us afloat. I attribute the SBA's success with working with us to the fact that they're personally invested in us. And so I was unaware of the business coaching that I could receive to help me learn how to run a business, to help me learn the language of business and how to really look at the numbers and do finances. They help me with all of that. They help me understand how to get capital and how to navigate and connect with the business community. I truly wish I knew about the SBA's resources sooner.
