Three cheers for Draeger’s

This is also a problem for Burlingame, San Carlos and Redwood City who have also seen recent revivals in their downtowns. It’s a nationwide problem — how to save small business. What no one wants to see is a majority of stores closing and staying shut. These small businesses need financial help from the federal, state and local governments. It can’t come soon enough.

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On the local level, the city of San Mateo donated $400,000 to help local merchants. Funds will be sent to SAMCEDA which has set up a special fund to help small business. The San Mateo Credit Union will administer grants up to $10,000. Grants (not loans) are intended to cover rent, mortgages, payroll and health insurance to keep people employed for two months. Other participants in SAMCEDA’s program are the county of San Mateo which has contributed $1 million to 20 cities and unincorporated areas split by population; Burlingame has contributed $500,000; Redwood City $300,000; San Carlos $112,000; and Colma $15,000. Rosanne Foust, CEO of SAMCEDA, says her organization will be making presentations to city councils in Woodside, Millbrae, Daly City, Menlo Park and Belmont this week.

Foster City did its own grant making to small business through their city manager’s office while South San Francisco is looking at loans to small business using Community Development Block Grant funds.

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Meanwhile, the challenges facing schools at all levels is unprecedented. Remote learning is taking the place of face-to-face instruction. It’s a new challenge for both teacher and student, especially those with limited technical skills and equipment (and that includes both teachers and students).

The San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District is providing Chromebooks to students with limited or no access to the internet and instruction to teachers on remote learning. It’s a challenge for all including parents. And the change is reflected in almost everything we do. Last week, the San Mateo Rotary Club conducted Zoom interviews with students applying for community college scholarships. Usually these interviews are held at the San Mateo public library where we use a big conference room and six small rooms. We had to set up separate Zoom meetings for the interviewers and the students; then a separate meeting for Rotarian interviewers to make final decisions on allocations. Laura Byrd Porter, a young member, who is also dealing with remote learning for her kindergartner and second grader, helped put this together. We also had to contact each applicant online to set up the interview. Usually, the counselors play a major role in person in getting these students to meet deadlines. Instead, we had to rely on emails and phone calls and even though several students missed the deadline we tried to accommodate them with a phone call. Still several never replied. The club was able to distribute $22,900 to 13 students which goes directly to the community college of their choice.

We are in a historical crisis and so many are trying to keep things afloat. Let’s hope our downtowns recover and our students find ways to succeed.

Sue Lempert is the former mayor of San Mateo. Her column runs every Monday. She can be reached at sue@smdailyjournal.com.