SMITHVILLE, Miss. (WTVA) - A workshop in Smithville Saturday afternoon afforded entrepreneurs and small business owners a chance to show off what the town has to offer.
It was held at United Methodist Church.
Members of the Small Business Administration and town leaders discussed the opportunities to start businesses in Smithville.
The S.B.A. uses meetings like this to inform people about what services and programs are available should they need extra funding and guidance.
"We have loan programs that we have for small businesses and entrepeuners," said Janita Stewart, district director for SBA. "You know folks that want to start a business we have government contracting programs as well and so we wanted to share that information with them."
Town leaders say there are many assets in Smithville such as Highway 25 and the Tenn-Tom Waterway.
"We're standing in a very unique place. "We're seven miles north of Amory. We're 14 miles south of Fulton and with the development going on on the Waterway here right above the county line here just in proximity of our town it holds a great advantage for us just to be able to promote small business," said Mayor Gregg Kennedy.
One of the priorities for the town is to exceed the number of businesses it it had before the tornado struck in April of 2011.
"Well, what we're looking at we're shooting on the five year plan is twenty, just twenty new businesses in town. We're on that path," Kennedy adds.
During fiscal year 2012, the S.B.A says a total of 442 loans were approved for small businesses in Mississippi.
