The City of Palmdale has announced a new partnership with three local chambers of commerce — the Antelope Valley Chambers, AV Black Chamber and AV Hispanic Chamber — to provide additional training and support to local small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
The City will provide a combined $50,000 to the chambers and provide use of office space and meeting rooms to provide services and conduct trainings throughout the year. Through the partnership, the chambers will provide free one-on-one counseling, workshops, local and federal certification training, and more to connect businesses with the resources and training they need to continue operations.
Since the pandemic began in March 2020, the City of Palmdale has invested more than $2 million dollars to support local businesses, including a combination of small business grants, gift card programs, fee waivers, and free marketing and promotion opportunities for local businesses. More than 150 businesses and organizations have directly benefited from these programs.
“As we head into 2021, businesses will continue to feel the lingering impacts of the pandemic forcing many business owners to evaluate whether or not they can continue operations,” said Palmdale Mayor Steve Hofbauer. “It makes great sense to see our staff leverage the relationships that our local chambers of commerce have with businesses community to create this program. The funding will also help the chambers maintain operations at a time when many of their main fundraising opportunities have been canceled due to COVID-19.”
Arthur Calloway, chairman of the Antelope Valley Black Chamber of Commerce, commended the new partnership that could expand services to assist local businesses.
“These certifications are crucial if local businesses want to complete for government funded contracts. We appreciate the City of Palmdale’s ongoing commitment to help the local business community,” Calloway said.
For more information contact Palmdale’s Economic Development department at (661) 267-5125 or economicdevelopment@cityofpalmdale.org
