Small Business Week: National Small Business Person of the Year

I'm Jill Scarborough. I am the CEO and owner of Bright Futures Learning Services, which is an ABA therapy clinic for children with autism. 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 Futures has been in this location in our foundations program since it'll be five years this July. We started Bright Futures as a private school for one kid in my granny's kitchen because we realized children with autism and children with special needs needed something different. 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, it was scary for us because we're a 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. When Covid hit, we had to do a full shutdown. We were closed for seven weeks entirely. And once we were able to come back, it with drastically reduced schedules with major changes. One of the biggest things that happened is we have just started a new pilot program for our elementary age learners in partnership with a local church and private Christian school. And that program was completely shut down. We had to relocate out to a summer camp. And this is the camp we came to. And we're so grateful that we had this partnership where we could have a home for a year while we figured figured out what we were going to do next. So at that point with our pilot program, we renovated a space there to make room for our kids. We immediately were getting information from the SBA about their payroll protection program, their Eidl loan program, and we're just hungry for that information. And what's great about West Virginia is we do everything as a community. The SBA played a tremendous role in helping us weather the storm from the beginning. They were getting information to us about the payroll protection program. And that program allowed us to keep every single one of our employees paid the entire time. Even though we were closed for seven weeks and were taking major hits. Not a single person went without a paycheck. Not a single person had reduction in benefits. And so we employed mostly a female workforce who are Single moms, and they can't afford to go without a paycheck.

We at the West Virginia Small Business Development center have been able to help Jill on 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 just ongoing coaching services and connecting with her in any way we can.

The Eidl loan was also an incredible asset to us that we were able to use those funds to make sure that we were still paying our mortgage loan, we were still paying our utility bills, we were still, you know, covering all of our expenses through those funds. So then that helped us use the revenue that we did have coming in to make sure that our. That our staff were getting paid, too. What was especially nice is that our local SBA understands the importance of ABA Therapy services on the bigger economy, that families move here to get services here and literally open their business on Main Street. Families that can't get these services are moving out of state. And so our local folks know that, and so take a special interest to make sure that we get the help that we need. 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. The SBA is a federal program, but what's great about it is our local representatives take it personally and call me and send me information on programs and really take a proactive personal interest in making sure that we're getting the help that we need.

Congratulations, Jill. And that concludes National Small Business Week 2022. Thanks again to all of our co sponsors, and congratulations again to all of our winners. Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do to help build a better America through entrepreneurs.