Sparta has been awarded an estimated $99,500 USDA Rural Business Development Grant to help support its local small businesses.
City Administrator Tonya Tindle said the grant will be used for local small businesses to develop a strategic five-year action plan in consultation with a firm. The businesses can also participate in a strategic visioning workshop, and receive 12 months of small business training. Tindle said it is hard to attract businesses to a rural area like Sparta, but even harder to support them.
“After you are there for a little while, they forget that they are there,” Tindle said. “And I think it is harder for people to be able to have the resources to get into the actual strategic planning of things that, for a city our size, I think people realize it is just really hard.”
Tindle said Sparta’s downtown has been revitalized with many small businesses opening. Tindle said the city is all in and will do what is necessary to help its local small businesses grow.
“It can only be better for Sparta,” Tindle said. “I mean, when the businesses in Sparta thrive, the city thrives.”
The grant will cover 100 percent of the cost. Tindle said the city won another grant from the state earlier in the year to help its local small businesses. Tindle said receiving this grant was unexpected.
“Crossville also got it, and I guess we were expecting maybe a city bigger than ours to have gotten it, so we were actually shocked when we were selected for it,” Tindle said.
Tindle said after speaking with the UCDD, there has been a delay with the contract for the grant. Tindle said with this delay, she is not sure when the company will begin working with small businesses.