COVID-19

When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a halt in 2020, small businesses faced enormous challenges—but they also showed remarkable resilience. Small Business Majority quickly mobilized with daily webinars, timely research, and strong advocacy to ensure entrepreneurs had the resources and support they needed. From amplifying small business voices in the media to pushing for fairer relief programs, our work during this period continues to shape policies today. Read how small businesses navigated the pandemic.

After more than 45 years of business, Dante Hamilton, owner of Internet Webpages Newspaper Inc., has found himself in a resource renaissance thanks to the newly prevalent online tools that have been available since the beginning of the pandemic. 

Janna Rodriguez has always been an active leader in her community—when she was 16, she began volunteering for political campaigns, from her local school board, all the way to presidential elections. In 2018, her entrepreneurial spirit led her to establish the Innovative Daycare Corp. in Long Island, New York. Her mission is to ensure that minority children in her community have the resources and privileges that children in other communities experience.

When Ramon Alvarez was 9 years old, his family moved to a small ranch just outside of Fresno, California. He worked to help his family make a living until he left for school. While working to pay his way through college, he fell in love with retail. 

After years of gaining experience at corporations like Home Depot, where he oversaw the opening of stores across the U.S. and in South America, he fulfilled his dream of opening a business of his own with his wife. 

Vanessa Avalos noticed a need for bilingual education for young children in her community, and she immediately decided to execute on it. She launched Luna y Cielo, a play café and Spanish learning center to aid Latino and Hispanic mothers in raising bilingual, bicultural and biliterate children. 

Edwin Sandoval, the proud owner of Xatrucho Concepts, moved from Honduras to the Colorado Springs area when he was only 10 years old. At age 14, he began working at restaurants, where he quickly realized his potential and passion for the food industry. He pursued a degree in culinary arts and continued to work at various high-scale restaurants until he had the gumption to start a business of his own.

When Tricia M. Arce’s grandmother passed away, she began making recipes with marshmallows to ease her grief. Once she realized how popular her inventions were among her coworkers and close friends, Tricia and her wife Hazel decided to launch the Toasted Mallow, a line of handcrafted marshmallow desserts for every taste, locally available in Gilbert, A.Z.