Sitting: Tyrus Brown, Owner of Brown Seafood. Standing, left to right: Tom Beckett and Chuck Miller, Upper Shore SCORE mentors. Michael Thielke, Executive Director, Eastern Shore Entrepreneurship Center
The local SCORE chapter headquartered in Chestertown and serving Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne’s Counties has provided its first Nano Loan to a local seafood business. Brown’s Seafood, owned by Tyrus Brown, was awarded a loan to expand his seafood business. Mr. Brown opened his business in Queen Anne’s County about 12 years ago. His company ships fresh seafood purchased from watermen in Queen Anne’s county to a growing number of customers located in an expanding regional market that includes Maryland, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia and Delaware.
Tyrus plans to use his loan to purchase equipment to expand his services to include on-site catering of fresh seafood.
The Nano Loan program was developed by members of the Upper Shore Chapter 670 to help fill a gap in the availability of very small business loans for start-up and existing small businesses. Nano Loans are also available for educational expenses related to approved certification programs.
Two non-profit organizations–the Eastern Shore Entrepreneurship Center headquartered in Easton and Maryland Capital Enterprises, Inc. in Salisbury—are providing financial and administrative services for the Upper Shore Nano Loan program.
The program is an experiment limited to applicants from Kent and Queen Anne’s Counties. SCORE has a limitation of $2,500 per loan, an interest rate of 6.5% and a term of up to 36 months for repayment.
To learn more about the program, call SCORE at 410-810-2969. If your call is not answered, leave your name and phone number and you will be contacted by a SCORE Mentor.
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