The Southern Virginia Regional Alliance (SVRA) and Virginia’s Growth Alliance have joined forces with a number of other collaborative partners to create a Bridge to Recovery program to support the GO Virginia Region 3 service area as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bridge to Recovery program recently received a $925,000 grant from GO Virginia to assist with providing immediate and impactful funding for businesses through the recovery periods of the COVID-19 pandemic and to bridge supply chain needs of companies with service providers. The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research Foundation will serve as the program’s fiscal agent as well as provide administrative support.
SVRA economic developers and partners formed the SoVa COVID-19 Task Force and expanded to include chambers of commerce across the SVRA region in March. Virginia’s Growth Alliance joined the effort and, in April, expanded it across the eastern GO Virginia Region 3 territory. The Task Force has polled, surveyed and benchmarked data for existing industry needs and best practices among other regions and states. The Bridge to Recovery program supports further assessment of supply chain needs for recovery as well as identification of suppliers. Eligible businesses may access technical assistance and professional services through a network of selected service providers.
The program’s vision is to ensure the support is immediate, that it deploys the GO Virginia contributions to work inside the region and that it makes a lasting impact on the businesses it supports. The funds will be leveraged by organizational match with potential for public and private sector contributions and will provide support to businesses located within all localities in GO Virginia Region 3.
| The following businesses are invited to apply as a prequalified supplier: |
| Suppliers of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Companies who provide PPE conversions (construction and building projects for COVID-19) Service providers who help companies with COVID-19 issues (i.e. accounting, legal, human resources, deep cleans, etc.) |
| Utilizing companies on this prequalified supplier listing will allow businesses to receive a cost match payment to suppliers of up to $20,000. |
Interested companies can contact Lgreen@SVRA.org or Jeff@vagrowth.com to be on the list of prequalified suppliers or to apply for funding to support COVID-19 recovery work. They may also complete the survey at
tinyurl.com/Bridge2Recovery.
Communication, programs and assistance ideas like depicted above were shared by localities across the region.
