LISC AmeriCorps member Reyna Symonds has brought her decades of experience to help budding BIPOC entrepreneurs in Rhode Island get started. Reyna joins the ranks of more than 3,400 LISC AmeriCorps members placed nationwide since the beginning of the program. AmeriCorps Week is March 12-18 this year, and we are grateful for her service.

To support the resiliency and growth of Black-owned small businesses, LISC and Nielsen Foundation have teamed up to provide technical assistance and small grants that can help entrepreneurs surmount the ravages of COVID and historic racial inequities. Part of the funding is earmarked for business development organizations (BDOs) that work with Black businesses based in centers of Black American culture—the Crenshaw district in LA, Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood, and Chicago’s South Shore.