Local bar owners tried to adapt to the pandemic, which has left their businesses empty for nearly a year. And while some methods of coping were helpful, others were not. "I had rented a tent, and that was outrageously expensive every month with the chairs and the tables and the heaters and the gas to control the heaters," said Jimmy Gilleece, owner of Jimmy ...

Small businesses that act fast can apply for a grant program designed to help companies pay basic operational expenses in a coronavirus-crippled economy.   In partnership with Verizon, the Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC) is offering $10,000 grants from a $10 million fund established by Verizon. The catch? The application window opened Monday morning and close ...

Within three days of applying in January, Wilmington-based company Queensboro received its second round of coronavirus relief funds from the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program.   The announcement by the federal gov­ernment late last year to reopen the U.S. Small Business Administration’s PPP loans couldn’t have come at a better time for The Quee ...

The loan application process is ongoing for first-time and second-time borrowers in the SBA's Paycheck Protection Program until the end of March. Businesses looking to take advantage of this latest round of funding could be part of as at least $15 billion in first-draw, and $25 billion in second-draw, PPP loans. Many businesses in the Cape Fear region a ...

Faced with a limited supply of vaccine doses to help eradicate a pandemic that knows no end and an ongoing hesitation on the part of some individuals to be vaccinated, leaders in government, business, higher education and neighborhoods are starting to roll out plans to convince as many peo­ple as possible to get inoculated once supplies become more plentiful.   ...

New Hanover Regional Medical Center is giving community vaccinations at a unique setting, a local movie theater. Stone Theatres' The Pointe 14, 2223 Blockbuster Road in Wilmington, opened its doors to medical staff and the community Wednesday for a COVID-19 vaccination clinic, hospital officials announced this week. "The New Hanover Regional Medical Center t ...

With just 100 doses of vaccine available Jan. 6 to help fight the spread of COVID-19, it took only 10 minutes for officials in Brunswick County to see their weekly supply exhausted as more than 6,000 phone calls poured in to the public health department.  The meager supply and strong public interest left those responsible for administering the vaccine wondering how ...

It was the worst of times, it was the weirdest of times. It was 2020, the year of the coronavirus pandemic. For many small business owners in the region – especially those dependent on visitors and indoor operations – im­pacted by restrictions to slow the virus’s spread, 2020 was a year of tough decisions.  Along those lines, Kris Testori ende ...

For a place that regularly receives thousands of doses of lifesaving pharmaceuticals, a shipment that arrived Thursday at New Hanover Regional Medical Center was one of its most important ever. Nearly 3,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine were delivered to NHRMC and inoculations were expected to begin Thursday afternoon. "We have vaccine in-house. ...

A little over nine months since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the state, the first doses of an approved vaccine arrived in North Carolina on Monday in what Gov. Roy Cooper described as a “remarkable achievement for science and health.” Katie Passaretti, Charlotte-based Atrium Health's medical director of infection prevention, was the first p ...