Woburn Launches Grant Program For Local Restaurants, Residents

WOBURN, MA — Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin announced a program Tuesday to assist both the city's restaurants and residents through gift certificate purchases. The program will be funded by a $35,000 donation from the Woburn Development Corporation.

The money will pay for gift certificates to downtown restaurants, which will then be distributed to families through the Council of Social Concern and the Senior Center.

The city did not say what households will be eligible for the gift cards. The gift cards are limited to downtown because the Corporation's funds are dedicated to supporting downtown businesses.

The city is soliciting interest from restaurants over the next two weeks: they can submit this form by 1 p.m. on Friday, May 15.

The city will purchase gift certificates the following week and distribute them to families soon after.

Other criteria for participating in the program include::

• "In accordance with Federal guidelines, the restaurant must employ less than five hundred (500) people;
• The business must be able to provide the City with an estimated 40 – 70 $25 gift certificates in hand the week of May 18th. (An equal number of gift certificates will be purchased from each restaurant, so the exact number of certificates needed from each business will depend on the final number of participating establishments.);
• As of the weeks of May 4th and May 18th (commencement of program), be open for business at least four (4) days per week and offering take-out and/or delivery service for at least five (5) hours each of those days; and
• Be willing to provide the City with a count of full- and part-time employees for the weeks of May 18th, June 30th and July 31, 2020. This information will not be disclosed specifically or publicly for each business, but rather will be used to compile a total, aggregate number of employees at participating restaurants for those three weeks, for the purposes of determining the degree of success the program might have had in terms of averting or delaying personnel layoffs in the short-term."

Anyone with questions can contact City Planner/Grant Writer Dan Orr at 781-897-5817 or dorr@cityofwoburn.com.

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Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.