Small businesses in Charlotte’s Corridors of Opportunity could land grants from Wells Fargo

Kristen Stewart opened her first ice cream shop last year in South End, shortly before she received a $20,000 grant from the Wells Fargo & Co.-backed Beyond Open small business program.

Her company, Urban Sweets, started in 2021, serving customers at community events around town with mobile ice cream carts. Stewart used the grant money to buy a cargo van that can accommodate and more easily move her company’s two ice cream carts to mobile events and back and forth to the store.

During the first half of 2023, Urban Sweets generated mobile sales equal to full-year sales for 2022. On Monday, Stewart told a group of entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and economic mobility advocates gathered in west Charlotte that the grant money she received provided more than a financial lift.

“The grant does more than just give you money, it gives you confidence,” she said, addressing the audience in the basement of Shiloh Institutional Baptist Church, home of local nonprofit Do Greater Charlotte’s entrepreneur lab for middle- and high-school students. “It gives you confirmation that your community believes in you, and that your community wants you to succeed.”

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Stewart and other recipients from the Beyond Open program spoke about their experiences as part of a kickoff event Monday aimed at raising awareness for the second round of grants, to be awarded in November. On Tuesday, the month-long application process opened for the next round of grants.

Interestingly, Stewart is ineligible to apply for another grant. Not because she received money from the initial round, but because this time the Foundation For The Carolinas-administered program has changed the criteria to focus exclusively on businesses located within the city’s six designated Corridors of Opportunity.

Tracy Russ, the foundation’s special adviser for civic initiatives, said Monday that suggestions from small-business owners and applicants’ addresses in the first round showed that the most need — and potential impact — lies within those corridors.

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