DAYTON, Ohio — For the past couple of weeks now, small businesses have been struggling to keep things afloat amid the shutdown.
It has negatively impacted many businesses and this was something Marshall Weil and his wife Gisselle Pereira knew they wanted to help out with.And that’s when they thought, what better way to help than to donate their stimulus check.
- An Ohio couple is encouraging people to donate their stimulus money to the community
- So far, over $90,000 has been pledged from people all across the country
- The couple hopes to not only help Ohio businesses, but those across the nation as well
“We realized pretty quickly that we weren’t the only people that wanted to try to do some good with our stimulus check,” said Marshall Weil, the Stimulus Challenge co-founder. “We had a conversation with a lot of people that were popping up across the internet, so we really saw just the opportunity to create a landing place for all of that.”
And that is how the Stimulus Challenge was formed. It is a platform that encourages people, who can, to donate half their stimulus checks to a non-profit of their choice and the other half to small businesses.
“For us, a lot of this was not only about keeping our economy going, but really just supporting friends and family who own businesses who are really struggling right now.
If you go to stimuluschallenge.us you can submit your pledge to donate your stimulus check.
So far, over $90,000 has been pledged from people all across the country to go towards non-profits and small businesses.
The site has only been up since Friday and Pereira says they’ve been able to make such a huge impact because of social media.
“Our hope is that as people are pledging dollars, they’re also sharing that as well to increase our reach,” said Gisselle Pereira, the Stimulus Challenge co-founder.
Through this challenge, the couple says they want to accomplish many things.
“One, we want to get people to think about how they fund their money a little differently,” said Weil. “Two, we want to give those who want to help a place to land and then three, we hope to just offer kind of a beacon of hope to the non-profits and small businesses that are out there.”
One of those small businesses is the Square One Salon, which has six locations across the state. Since closing on March 16 it’s been a huge challenge for them to manage all their expenses. One of the owners, Bent Johnson, says the stimulus check donation will be a big help.
“It’s heartwarming, it’s also humbling and you know, we’ve gone from being a very positively-influenced business of someone that walks strong in the community, to being completely hobbled,” said Johnson.
As the challenge continues to grow, Weil and Pereira hope to not only help Ohio businesses like Square One Salon, but those across the nation as well.
“Right now our focus is making sure that it goes outside of the Dayton area and really expands because the intention is to not just benefit our city, but the country,” said Pereira.
