The pandemic may have broken many things, but it did not break the resolve of our people. We have been blown away by the countless stories of small business owners, artists, creatives and folks in every profession. The resilience and the ability to pivot to survive has been beyond inspiring and below we’ve shared stories of how folks have adapted their business models and ways of operating.

Marie Cleaves R

One of the best things about the past three years is seeing a newfound interest in movement and wellness. With activity away from home limited, many people turned to at-home workouts. Local studios like Move It, did their best to compete with national brands, creating a comparable online experience for their clients. Read more>>

Annie Meinberg

week went by and the phone wasn’t ringing. Then I received a phone call from a client requesting to cancel their party. That’s when I realized the coronavirus was going to affect Dream Scene. What I didn’t realize at the time was how long it was going to affect business. I refunded parties, postponed others, and waited patiently. Read more>>

Suzy Ray

Prior to COVID I was a maker selling wooden home décor and wall art almost exclusively direct to the consumer through small shops (on consignment) and craft markets. In late February 2020 I joined together with a friend who owned her own business making candles, and we applied for the Batavia Boardwalk Shops program. This is a program offered by the Batavia MainStreet organization to help jumpstart new businesses and bring more retail shops to the Historic Downtown district of Batavia, Illinois. Read more>>

Deaney Bautista

Covid-19 made me do a 360 on the products I offer and how I did my business. You see, I started my business Deaney Weaney Blooms offering digital templates fellow crafters can use with their cutting machines such as Cricut and Cameo Silhouette. For the first couple of years, I just designed and created digital products. It was a source of passive income and ran well with my full-time job at the time. When the pandemic hit, I lost my full-time job and became stuck at home for several months with my newborn baby. Read more>>

Yibei Chen

Before Covid, I did some internships in China, and all of them are on-site. I came to office everyday, step into the design department and sit into my place, open up the computer and continue doing my design work or just browsing webpages and finding some inspirations. I need to stand by at the most times, in case my manager/director will send over the design tasks to me. It is easy for my manager and director to check in the process of a design project, they can just stand behind me and see my computer screen for any adjustments and suggestions. Read more>>

Cris Johnson

As a full-time magician, Covid destroyed my business. I had to pivot quickly. I started doing virtual shows. Then I started offering digital marketing services for other magicians. Read more>>

Mike Skroch

We’ve found it necessary to try and plan ahead by keeping things on hand as we try to counter the problem of material shortages. We found a lot of shortages with glass bottles and if not that, then it was caps for the bottles . Very long lead times of labels. It went from 2 weeks to 6 weeks. Everyone was blaming no more workers and truckers to get our materials needed for packaging maple syrup. Read more>>

Shannon Carr

Almost all my courses and workshops have successfully moved online Read more>>

Zach & Shawnna Brunner

Prior to COVID, our business focused on working directly with community associations & HOA’s; providing custom events structured specifically for these individual communities. Once COVID hit it shut everything down & forced us to completely restart & restructure. These community associations & HOA’s opened up their parking lots to the food truck owners to serve their community directly & keep themselves a float & it did absolutely amazing things for these business owners. Read more>>