Pawtucket Promotes series to highlight small business community - by mayor Donald Grebien

Last month, the city of Pawtucket commerce department, partnering with Bank Newport, held its first event in the Pawtucket Promotes series aimed at promoting Pawtucket’s diverse small business community. This event, Pawtucket Promotes: Women in Business, which highlighted women-owned business in our community and celebrated Women’s History Month, was held at Atrium on Main in Pawtucket and catered by Plouffe’s Diner and Pub.

With March being Women’s History month, and after kicking off with Pawtucket’s International Women’s Day Celebration, it is important to keep our momentum in recognizing and assisting women-owned and women-led businesses.

Over 60 attendees came to our inaugural event in the series to listen to trailblazing women from the nutrition, restaurant, manufacturing and hospitality sectors, share stories of the challenges they faced while operating their small businesses, as well as how they would like the city to assist businesses. Other topics of discussion were about marketing, accessing grant programs, and resources. Carmen Diaz-Jusino, Bank Newport’s vice president of community development served as the moderator, with panelists including Stacey Riendeau of Bake My Day, Lorraine Sena of the Bucket Nutrition, Carmen Monteiro of 10 Rocks Tapas Bar, and Charna Ethier of Providence Perfume.

All of our small business sectors are important and we hope that highlighting these businesses in this series will both bring awareness to the businesses, along with helping them to recover from the still ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sandra Cano, who was appointed as Pawtucket’s director of commerce in December of 2021, will oversee this new forum series spotlighting our local businesses. The next event in the series will be held at the Isle Brewer’s Guild (461 Main St., Pawtucket) on Friday, April 29^th from 9am to 11am in partnership with RISE Engineering.

The Pawtucket Promotes series fits in well with Pawtucket’s commitment to promote smart, responsible growth of small businesses within our city that respects our rich history of economic innovation, our moniker of being the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution, the cultural diversity present, and the unique character of our community.

Stay tuned to the city of Pawtucket website at www.pawtucketri.com for more information on the upcoming Pawtucket Promotes event along with its theme.

If you would like to learn more about Pawtucket’s economic development projects and economic development incentives, contact Sandra Cano, commerce director, at scano@pawtucketri.com.

Donald Grebien is the mayor of the City of Pawtucket