Applications are now open for the Arkansas 30 Day Fund.
On Thursday, May 14, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that she and her husband, Bryan Sanders were launching the Arkansas 30 Day Fund, a forgivable loan program for Arkansas small businesses. Starting Monday, May 18, the program’s website is open to begin applying for funding.
To be eligible for the program, businesses must be owned and operated by an Arkansas resident, be based in Arkansas and have been operating for at least one year, and employ three to 30 employees.
The grants are meant to be used for meeting payroll, saving jobs, paying insurance, and keeping businesses’ doors open. In an television interview, Huckabee Sanders said that the program currently has no limitation on the amount of money it is planning to distribute. According to the Arkansas 30 Day Fund website, the program is not a government-supported organization but is “fueled by the private sector committed to supporting small business jobs and entrepreneurs in Arkansas.”
“We want to help as many small businesses across the state as we can. What we have done is create a program [that] is not meant to make a business whole. It’s meant to help bridge the gap until they can receive state or federal assistance or the demand for their business comes back,” she said in the interview.
The maximum payment available for the program is $3,000. Arkansas 30 Day Fund, she said, is not designed to fully sustain businesses but to “bridge the gap” until businesses can regenerate their business demand or obtain further assistance.
“My husband and I have been looking for ways to help people during this crisis and we are encouraged by the tremendous response we have received from Arkansans who want to partner with us in this effort. The Arkansas 30 Day Fund is nonpartisan, and we hope to work with people who may not agree with us on anything other than helping people in our community in need,” Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “It’s about Arkansans helping Arkansans, standing together in a time of crisis, and saving jobs.”
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