Perry DDA looks to ‘BOOST’ downtown businesses again

The Perry Downtown Development Authority is gearing up to give local businesses a helping hand in December.

Downtown business owners have until Nov. 18 to apply for grants from the BOOST Downtown Perry Investment Group, a local group that provides grant money to small business owners and entrepreneurs in the downtown development district.

Catherine Edgemon, Main Street coordinator, said the group is patterned after one in Milledgeville. She and other city officials toured Milledgeville in January to get a closer look at how such a system operates.

The first recipients of BOOST grants were Davida’s Hair Salon on Jernigan Street and Tumblecheer Heroes on Ball Street.

“Our hope here in Perry is that once a business gets a helping hand and is on its feet, they can help others do the same,” Edgemon said Wednesday.

Anyone can donate to the group, she said, including business people, entrepreneurs or private citizens.

“We’re always accepting new boosters,” she said. Grant applications are to be filed online at the BOOST Investment Group tab on the web site of the Downtown Development Authority. Grants are now awarded twice yearly, she added, with the goal of making it a quarterly event.

“We want a strong downtown,” she said.

In other activity, the authority:

• Heard Chairman David Grossnickle say he would step down when his term expires in December. He was appointed by City Councilmember Riley Hunt.

• Agreed that Becky Powell of the Georgia Artisan Center and a member of the city’s Arts Commission would be the unofficial “cheerleader” for the BOOST group.

• Discussed using the sale of advertising on the city’s tram as a fund-raising tool.

• Discussed possibly using the parking lot at the old Jaycees Building on Gen. Courtney Hodges Boulevard as a parking site for tour buses.

HHJ News