Hopewell Downtown Partnership (HDP), a Community Business Launch (CBL) grantee for 2022, hosted two grand openings this week at its regularly scheduled Third Thursdays Street Festival. City Point Ice Cream and Burgers owners Phillip and Lexi Hughes, and Jonathan Montiel, and Artisan Alley owner Ann Audrey Eliades Kirk both received funding from the Homegrown in Hopewell pitch competition, along with two other businesses, Box 5 Cabaret and Brain to Box.

HDP received a higher than expected interest in the program, with 109 total applications! Half of those applicants completed the business training provided by Virginia State University’s Minority Small Business Launch Center. Due to the remarkable number of entrepreneurs ready to pitch for funding, 30 were chosen to complete a preliminary pitch, which allowed judges to narrow the final pitch competition to 12 businesses.

The City of Hopewell contributed $10,000 to the total $40,000 prize package, and several property owners offered leasing incentives to winners of the pitch competition. Prize packages also included one-year free membership to the Hopewell- Prince George Chamber, in addition to on-going counseling and technical support from HDP and other local business organizations.

For more information on HDP’s new businesses, be sure to follow them here.