Harford County To Offer $5,000 Grants For Small Business Owners

BEL AIR, MD – Harford County officials announced Wednesday they will offer $5,000 grants for small businesses that may not have qualified for previous grant programs. County officials will begin accepting applications on June 10. Applications and information about the grant programs can be found on the Harford County website.

The grants are being offered to business owners who run small operations that do not meet the standards for either the county’s $7,500 business grant or the $2,500 farm grant program. Larger businesses may apply for the $5,000 grant program but city officials are attempting to reserve funds for small businesses.

In an email Wednesday, Harford County spokeswoman Cindy Mumby said that the $7,500 grant program is designated for small businesses with 2-50 employees while the $2,500 program is for farms with 10-plus acres, which. began May 26 and the first handful of payments have already gone out.

The county received 700 applications for the two previous grant programs and expect to be sending payments out to 150-200 applicants per week until all qualified applicants have been paid, Mumby wrote.

Mumby note that County Executive Barry Glassman’s goal with all of these programs is to get help to the county's business community as soon as possible. There are no requirements for the minimum number of employees to qualify for the grant program.

"There are plenty of mom-and-pop businesses who do not have two employees, and we did not want to leave them out,” Mumby told The Baltimore Sun.

According to county officials, the funds will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. The grants will be paid out of the county’s first round of CARES funding, which is about $22 million.

County officials said that the $5,000 grant can only be used for commercial mortgages, rent or leases.