This is What We Do:
Connect our Businesses to Resources
Back on March 20, we shared information and a link to an informational webinar about a grant-funding partnership between Main Street America and American Express, called Backing Small Business. Often, we post these items to our private MVDA Merchant Facebook page and never learn if anyone takes advantage of them unless we are asked to provide a supporting letter or other assistance. Nearly 3 months to the day after that original post, on June 15, we were delighted to hear from Karen Neugebauer of Forté Chocolates that she was one of 350 small businesses nationwide to receive a $5,000 grant. As one of those 350 recipients, she is eligible to apply for one of five $25,000 grants- available only to them!
To understand the significance of this $5K grant to her business, it is important to know a bit of Karen’s personal story. In 2006, Karen started Forté Chocolates, having become enamored of chocolate-making as a student in the Art Institute of Seattle’s Baking and Pastry program. She went on to become a Master Chocolatier, whose many international awards establish her as one of the Top 10 Chocolatiers in the world – the only woman on that list! She opened her flagship store in downtown Mount Vernon, where it has become a retail anchor in the district. In 2013, as Karen’s renown and business were growing, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Her vision was affected first: she was working in her kitchen when she realized that she could not see the colors of her various kinds of cocoa butter.
While Karen’s disease has progressed, robbing her of her ability to control and use her dominant right side, it has not slowed her progression in her business. On the contrary, she has become left-handed, and her staff says she still makes everything look easy. Her love of the work has not wavered; she speaks of how her work in the kitchen serves as her physical therapy, forcing her to move and helping her to retain her mobility. The various changes needed to adapt to her body’s limitations have been approached as challenging puzzles to solve, rather than setbacks. She remains adamant that there be no task in her kitchens that she herself is unable to do, which has led to creative modifications over the years and serves as a point of pride.
A few years back, one modification had to be made in truffle production that was not ideal for Karen’s high standards: they shifted from using hand-cut ganache in their truffles to using molds to shape the ganache centers. Using molds is not only less satisfying, it is also too slow and long a process, hampering production goals and impacting the bottom line. The $5,000 Backing Small Business grant allows Forté Chocolates to purchase a tool known as a guitar (stringed wooden crosspieces on a frame) to once again hand-cut the truffle ganache at an increased production rate.
When pressed about what she might apply to use the $25K grant for, Karen smiles mysteriously and says she’s not sure yet which avenue she might pursue with it, but it will be used to grow her business. She hopes that Forté Chocolates will eventually return to supporting the 20 jobs it sustained prior to the pandemic, increasing from the current level of 8 jobs. When asked if it would be okay for us to use this exciting announcement and story for a “This is What We Do…” article in this newsletter, Karen enthusiastically agreed, adding that she had also received a $8,000 Rain Boost grant which she learned about from the MVDA. She reminded me that she had also been the recipient of a one-on-one store evaluation consultation with retail merchandising expert Seanette Corkhill of Front Door/Back, whom the MVDA brought to town for free training and raffled consultations back in early 2015, soon after she opened her store in downtown.
Every opportunity to engage with Karen leaves us inspired, and this recent visit also leaves us feeling gratified to have helped in any way to make her entrepreneurial dreams come true.
