Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Investors Conference highlights resilience
Virtual event aims to attract entrepreneurs to Pottstown
POTTSTOWN » The Pottstown Investors Conference had a different format this year, held virtually on the Zoom conferencing app because of continued coronavirus restrictions.
About 130 registered people registered for the April 16 event. It was the fourth year for the event — a half-day event geared for those interested in supporting Pottstown’s revitalization, including current businesspeople, entrepreneurs considering establishing a business in the Borough, and nonprofit leaders.
It wasn’t just the presentation platform that changed this year.
“Previous Pottstown conferences have focused more specifically on providing reasons to pick Pottstown,” said Peggy Lee-Clark, executive director of PAID Inc. “We all agreed to shift this year’s focus to highlight resilience of investors despite the pandemic. We also agreed it was important to address the issue that has been at forefront for most of this year. Social equity and its impact on our businesses can no longer be ignored.”
Cathy Skitko, director of Hobart’s Run Communications and Community Relations said ahead of the event that organizers want to see investors that will not only be investing in Pottstown, but that will be invested in Pottstown.
The perspective was shared by Don Chen, the event’s keynote speaker. Chen is president and CEO of the New York Citybased Surdna Foundation, an organization focused on social justice.
Chen said Skitko’s distinction “hit home” for him, and is an important distinction on how to create and foster a robust and equitable future.
“I believe the key to developing a strong local economy —
one that is equitable and sustainable and prosperous is to have people in businesses who are invested in place, not just investing their money and resources so they can extract a tidy return on investment down the line but are invested in the future of this community,” he said.
Chen said the pandemic has had a devastating effect on local communities, especially in the areas of commercial real estate, hospitality, tourism and leisure.
“We have seen Black-owned businesses are predicted to be closing at rate of more than 40% during this pandemic recession. Latino and Asian businesses aren’t faring well either.”
Chen added that communities that are concentrated in tech and science industries are expected to bounce back more robustly than those with over reliance on commercial real estate, hospitality and those types of industries that have been really hard hit.
He added that in his experience, small manufacturing, like breweries, textiles and other maker spaces have power.
Social fabric, he said, is important, and is an advantage small towns and cities have over larger places.
“Social fabric is something I think is very strong in Pottstown. I believe you will be able to translate that into positive returns moving forward,” he added.
A highlight of the event was a panel discussion with two Pottstown small businesses owners: Kristen Sirbak, owner of Beverly’s Pastry Shop, 322 E. High St., and Zahmere Trott, owner of Uptown Flavors Kitchen, 16 S. Keim St.
Asked what their reaction was when the word first came last March that non-essential businesses needed to close, Sirbak said her initial reaction was, “Yay, I get a vacation for a little bit.”
“Then I realized it wasn’t a vacation and it was going to be a whole year. It was shock, worry, and ‘what are we going to do,’ she said.
“I was just getting Uptown Flavors off the ground,” Trott said. “I invested so much money and hadn’t had an opportunity make any money and you want me to close the doors? It was impossible, I couldn’t do it.”
Asked how his business changed as the pandemic continued, Trott said as the months went on, prices of food kept increasing, and his vendors didn’t have the products he needed.
“It started to get harder for us. Now I am wracking my brain, because I can’t push it all off on my customers because I would lose business,” he said. “We started to take a big hit, because I refused to raise my prices to make them not affordable for our clientele in the Pottstown community. That was one thing I didn’t agree with doing.”
Sirbak got a little emotional when asked at what point she knew her business had survived.