While most Clevelanders were finally finishing off the Thanksgiving leftovers, these organizations were busy announcing loans and programs aimed at helping area small businesses, entrepreneurs and employees with good ideas.
 
-A unique collaborative of organizations and institutions has launched a small business lending program to help African American and minority businesses create and maintain jobs for residents and build community wealth. With a focus on bringing capital to underserved groups, the National Urban League’s Urban Empowerment Fund, Morgan Stanley, the National Development Council, the Urban League of Greater Cleveland, and Cuyahoga County have come together to offer the Capital Access Fund of Greater Cleveland (CAF).
 
CAF is a three-year program that provides minority business owners with access to capital offering 50 loans totaling $8 million as well as pre- and post-loan counseling to ensure the success of those small business borrowers. With a goal of creating or maintaining a minimum of 300 jobs within those three years, CAF already has completed 8 loans totaling $1.4 million helping to create or maintain 70 local jobs.
 
Read more here.
 
-Bad Girl Ventures Cleveland celebrated their fall 2016 graduation and five-year anniversary on November 30^th by awarding two $15,000 loans, in partnership with the Economic Community Development Institute (ECDI), to the following women entrepreneurs: Liza Rifkin of Liza Michelle Jewelry and Angelina Rodriguez Pata of Blackbird Fly Boutique. Both are located in Ohio City.

-The MetroHealth System hosted its second Think Tank Competition on November 30. Modeled after the ABC show Shark Tank, employees submitted their ideas for a chance to win money to fund projects for the betterment of MetroHealth. Two winners were awarded a cool $150,000 each.
 
Their projects include one aimed at the development of a strategic approach to reduce the risks of opioid dependence and addiction for patients and the community through integrated pathways, analytics, informatics, and education. The other will create a formal team/department to administer and coordinate all of event medicine needs.

Read more here.

 

An image roundup from points across the 216 full up with Santas and skaters and sparkling holiday finery as captured by Fresh Water's managing photographer Bob Perkoski.

From the reclamation of the Henninger Landfill to saving a Russell Township farm, the Western Reserve Land Conservancy fosters thriving urban centers, green space and more by preserving some 5,000 acres annually.
 

A group of buildings built in the late 1800s on Church Avenue between W. 25^th and W. 28^th Streets in Ohio City were once the hallmark of a manufacturing town – housing everything from the original Baehr Brewing Company and Odd Fellows Masonic Hall to a machine shop and a tin and sheet metal shop, among other business and residential dwellings. 

Exhibit Builders last owned and operated the buildings fronting W. 25th Street. More recently, the heavy industrial buildings housed the Phoenix Ice Machine Company, Lester Engineering Company, then a charter school and the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority.
 
Today development partners Rick Foran of Foran Group and Chris Smythe of Smythe Property Advisors are converting the structures into contemporary apartment lofts with a nod to their unique history. “You know you’re in historic buildings, but with modern amenities,” says Smythe.
 
The project has been nine years in the making. Smythe and Foran bought their first property in the group from CMHA back in 2008 with a bank loan. Then the real estate market tanked.

Continue reading.

Three long-time area volunteers reveal what drives them to give so generously, how they've soldiered through the tough times and the ways in which their efforts pay back – and then some.

In this special op-ed for Fresh Water, Brandon Chrostowski, founder of EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute, gives Clevelanders powerful and sobering reminders on the heels of the city's remarkable summer of 2016.
 

Years in the making, plans for La Villa Hispana – a center celebrating Latino heritage and commerce in the Clark Fulton neighborhood – will be unveiled next month at a City Planning Commission meeting.

Local artists Gary and Laura Dumm mix the likes of Frankenstein and vampires with pesticides and global warming - along with a side of humor - in an evocative new show.

The Bradford Exchange, purveyors of all things collectible from Thomas Kinkade to Disney, has set its latest sights right here in Cleveland - at Franklin Castle no less.

As part of its "America's Most Haunted Village Collection," the fave local landmark will be offered as Issue Two. Issue One will be the Amityville House. Structures measure 4.5 inches wide by 6.5 inches long by 5.25 inches deep.

Per the company's site: "Each sculpture illuminates and features a wealth of detailing like the ghoulish apparitions that are seen peering out from their windows. Plus, learn about the events that took place in each historic place and what is thought to haunt the space with the included printed newspaper cards."

Full information, including images of the fun and funky miniatures, is available here.