BREWSTER, Mass. — September 18, 2012 — The Community Development Partnership has been working to provide affordable housing and to help small businesses get started and keep going for years, but now it’s dropped anchor in a new field: fishing.
The partnership has $250,000 available for loan to small fishermen on Cape Cod to be used to purchase allocations of groundfish, skate or monkfish.
The money came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which awarded $1 million to the state Division of Marine fisheries. The DMF in turn selected the CDP to administer the loans on Cape Cod.
“They put out an RFP [request for proposals] to the Massachusetts community to see who was interested and we were the only ones to apply,” explained Sheila Hoogeboom the CDP director of business and credit programs. “They don’t pay you to advertise it but we wanted to do it. We feel it will be a help to fishermen.”
The monies were awarded on Aug. 3, and so far the CDP has no takers, since the fishing season is well underway and allocations are all active. When the fish stop biting or getting swept up in nets, Hoogenboom expects to get some nibbles at the loan program.
“We were not ready in the early spring when the season started,” she said “But three people have told us they are going to apply. With all our loan clients we take a couple of meetings to get acquainted and to write up a business plan."
Read the full article at Wicked Local