I'm a small business owner and this has been a tough week. I own a local tutoring company where we help kids catch up and get ahead in school here in Valrico called GradePower Learning.
To be frank, in the last two weeks my business is down about 70% from where it was.
Still, we fight onward. In two weeks, we've remade our entire business model on the fly, switching to online classes for our students, developing new curriculum to support new and reluctant homeschooling parents, and sanitizing everything constantly to keep our remaining in-person clients safe and healthy. I'm doing everything I can to pay our teachers decently and protect my salaried staff, make rent, and pay my creditors, but there's just no way to do it painlessly. We're all doing what we can just to get by right now.
And yet, many have it far worse - restaurant owners, service workers, my own tutors. There's pain everywhere you look in our economy and that's not to take an ounce away from those who are dealing with the virus themselves or through loved ones. It's altogether unbearable.
Still, we must defeat this disease before it drags us further down. We need the sort of leadership that seems to be lacking here locally, in Tallahassee, and in Washington. We MUST wrap our hands around this and fight with purpose instead of this piecemeal approach that is wrecking our economy AND getting folks killed in the process.
Now is the time to lock things down and fight this pathogen by stomping it out.
To keep our economy alive, I call for a payment pause. No mortgage payments, rent collection, or debt repayments until the disaster declaration is lifted .
Washington MUST fully activate the Defense Production Act to get masks, gowns, respirators and other badly needed supplies to our front-line healthcare workers ASAP. We need to federalize the medical supply chain immediately to insure we are getting critical supplies to the hot spots where they are needed. We are all in this together.
For our part, locally, we're maintaining a COVID-19 resource portal with the advice of a doctor, unemployment and small business resources, up-to-date statistics, and guidance from the city and state. [[link removed]]
Please, pass it along so others can benefit from the resource. Share this email so our current elected leaders hear the message and start taking this threat seriously. And for God's sake wash your hands, stay inside, and check in on a friend. We are, after all, in this TOGETHER.
-Onward
Andrew Learned
Candidate for Florida House (FL-59)
AndrewLearned.com
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