TYLER, Texas — So many of us were impacted by last week's winter weather, but East Texas businesses stepped up in a big way — with a focus on helping their community.
Scott Martinez, President and CEO of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce, credits the resilience of East Texans and how we came together to help each other.
"What was impressive last week is we have so many businesses that stepped up to the plate and went beyond the call of just, you know, making sure that we're doing transactions, that we're looking at the community as a whole and making sure that community was taken care of," he said.
Grocery stores in the area worked to get people what they needed. "I look at some of the things that they did with providing water, and the way their team members got to store — they were able to serve the customers in what really was a tenuous time," Martinez said.
Along with existing insurance policies, there are tools from the federal government available to help get businesses back on track. Martinez underscored that a key partner in the whole process is the Small Business Administration.
"The website is first the process of getting loan assistance or whatever other federal assistance may be out there related to the disaster declaration that was done by the federal government last week," he said.
It was a tough week, but Martinez thinks the changes we've all had to make as a result of COVID-19 helped during the chaos.
"Our lives have been turned upside down so much over the past 13 months with a pandemic," he said. "A lot of people just seem to be better programmed to handle adversity."
East Texans working hard and helping each other get back to business.
