What Small Businesses Are Holding Up: Community

One of Coach Alex Lalaoui's programs is a free soccer camp in Hudson County, New Jersey. Five mornings a week, eight to eleven.

"If you've seen who's there, you'd be surprised," said Coach Alex, who owns the Soccer Learning Center in Jersey City. "The whole community is there. It's not like everybody's in need."

Businesses like his, he said, are "not just economic units. I think we are a community infrastructure." And: "When we thrive, communities thrive."

This year, Main Street Assembly interviewed five owners across manufacturing, fashion, mental health, and youth sports. All five described what their business means to the people around it, and how they're keeping it going.

What these businesses are to the places they're in

Coach Alex serves over a thousand families a year. Twenty-four years in. His mission, as he states it, is elite coaching for "every family... regardless of their zip code," in what he calls the most diverse place in Jersey City.

Asked about his team and his families, he described something other than soccer.

"Soccer is just -- it's not just soccer," he said. "It's more almost like you're walking into an embassy."

Pass by the parents during a game, he said, and the conversation has nothing to do with the game. Someone's talking about a trip to the Bahamas. Someone else is talking about how gas went up. People find job opportunities through the club. Three couples have met there and married there.

"Soccer is just a tool -- bringing people together and also connecting and networking."

Ahead of the World Cup he was working on the five fan zones Hudson and Bergen counties were staging together, plus watch parties at the stadium in Harrison for under $15 a head -- against stadium tickets he said ran into the thousands.

Just a few hours north in Ilion, New York, Michael Quinn has watched the town where Acorn Products Corporation started lose what he calls its lifeblood. Remington Arms was right around the corner from the Ilion plant, one of two Michael runs with his father. It closed a few years ago.

"It really feels like there's a gap or something missing," he said. "There's not too many manufacturers or just employers in the Valley. And I think it really does affect the quality of life for everybody that lives in Ilion, Herkimer, Frankfort, the whole Mohawk Valley." Later in the conversation: "If you talk to anybody from our area, they've probably seen it decline. I mean, it's sad to see."

Local companies depend on Acorn for work they can't do in-house -- low-volume, complex custom molding, metal inserts, specialized materials, the jobs larger plants won't take. "Not a lot of people have these machines or the knowledge to be able to run them," Michael said.

He thinks it can run the other way, too. "If there's other companies thriving, it's going to attract newer businesses, better talent, not just for us. For all the other local businesses." That, he said, would "help raise the bottom floor of the whole thing."

Dr. Sarosh Cooper started Footprint Therapy and Evaluation Services about twelve years ago with a co-founder and one small office. The intent, in his words, was "a community private practice, something that would serve the local community." Footprint now carries between 350 and 380 open cases.

When office space was more affordable during COVID he took a larger one in a good location and spent two years renovating it, doing much of the work himself, "like most small business owners."

His competitors have capital he doesn't. He calls their product "McDonald's therapy" -- quick fixes, lower anxiety, depression lifted in three weeks. His approach, he said, is different. It runs on relationships -- the ones people have with themselves, with their loved ones, with their work and their sense of meaning. It aims at relief too, but "relief that's gonna last."

As the market shifted he diversified, by his own account to survive in it. The practice took on families and children, added group therapy, and began running professional development trainings for local school systems, public and private. He recently hired a neuropsychologist to offer evaluations for learning differences, ADHD, and autism.

Terrell Dominick's customers are her own community. She runs a women's e-commerce fashion brand under her own name, designing for Black women between 35 and 60 who want to be represented and to "see themselves in a brand." "I am my customer," she said.

"Everybody's willing to take our money," she said. "But it's only a few people that look like us that's able to fill in that gap. And that is a big issue."

"That's not just a dress. It's bigger than a dress. It's bigger than just a transaction."

Last year she took a slightly smaller margin because, she said, "we know what the climate was looking like." It "hurt us a bit," but loyal customers were appreciative. "We can weather this storm with you guys."

Meadow Propsom manufactures Silvia Sol in Colombia, where her mother is from. Among her reasons: producing there lets her "help out in the economy a little bit there, like very lightly." Then: "I really hope in the future I can do even more."

When these businesses close, the loss is specific. Close Acorn and the local firms that rely on it have nowhere else to go. Close the Soccer Learning Center and a thousand families lose a gathering space and the only program that priced them in.

What's actually holding them up

Meadow's supply chain runs on her relatives. Her grandmother and brother live in Colombia, her aunt about half the year, and they help with shipping and other logistics. The factory is small and family-owned. "Shout out Maria, she's the owner." She funded the brand herself -- social media income and a Nordstrom retail job, saved since her junior year of high school. No investors. "It's in my control."

Acorn runs on a father and a son. Most injection molders his father's age have no reliable succession plan, Michael said. "A lot of them are left to sell their business or put it up for an auction." He couldn't imagine it: "To see your life's work go away like that." What he wants out of growing: "I'd love to have a place where people come and work and then their kids want to work there, the families want to work there."

The knowledge is less settled than the ownership. He described the company's records as thin -- "not a lot of writing stuff down, not a lot of online documentation" -- and called it a challenge that isn't here yet but is "definitely on the way." He and two engineers he hired, friends from his degree program, are working on it. But: "If I don't have time to always do that, we're busy."

Coach Alex's free camp exists because Hudson County funds it. He named a county executive and the Parks leadership: "Whatever I ask for, it's there. Equipment, security."

Terrell has been self-funded for four and a half years. She doesn't think that's sustainable. "Self-sufficiency sounds great. It is great if you can do it forever. You keep your control. You keep all of those things in house. However, it's just not realistic."

Every one of these supports depends on a particular person or a particular budget staying in place. That's a lot of weight for goodwill to carry.

What they're asking for

Terrell did three and a half million in sales over four years, which she calls a tiny business. The grants available to her run $500 to $6,000, amounts that "don't necessarily move the needle for the time that it takes to participate." She repeated a line she'd heard and couldn't source: "Black businesses always receive mentorship, but never money." On the funding gap itself, she marked it as her own understanding: "I believe we received something like less than 1% of the funding."

She isn't simply asking for capital, though. She's wary of it. "Outside money becomes outside control," she said. "I'm a little cautious about constantly calling for like outside investment into our business community. What does that mean for us on the other side?"

What she wants is capital that doesn't cost her control -- investment that still leaves room for Black-owned businesses to "invest into our communities at a greater number than it is now."

Coach Alex wants capital for equipment, and grants and sponsorship. He named companies he'd like to hear from: Adidas, Nike, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Chase, Goldman Sachs.

Michael wants tax relief that reaches employees. Money that currently goes to income, property, and materials taxes "would go through us and down to our employees pockets," he said. "Maybe that helped fix some of the issues with Ilion, who knows, right? It became like a lower income town, and if the people were making more, if there were more jobs there, I think they would benefit quite a bit."

Coach Alex, on who deserves support: "Whether it's small business, whether some of them are nonprofits or for profit -- you want that business to continue if they are serving the community. To me, there is no differen[ce]."

The businesses on Main Street are doing the work and serving their communities. The infrastructure around them needs to catch up.