“One Pueblo Project” to help small businesses

PUEBLO, Colo. (KRDO) -- The Pueblo Business Economic Recovery Team held a press conference Monday to discuss a new program designed to help businesses in the city.

The One Pueblo Project looks to give relief to small businesses.

Watch the press conference here:

For Ray Romero, owner of 'My Friend The Printer' a printing business in Pueblo, this year has been nothing short of challenging.
It's been an uphill battle trying to keep the business running during a time like this. "Business is down 40 percent," said Romero, owner of 'My Friend The Printer.'

Through the difficulty, BERT also known as the Pueblo Business Economic Recovery Team, comprised of several organizations working to help local businesses during this time, has been helpful. "They emailed us constantly trying to help through this pandemic, during these challenging months," Romero added.

Now, they've added 'One Pueblo Plan' focusing on economic growth beyond this pandemic.
"On a way to not only recover from the covid crisis, and how we come out of it but more importantly how do we take it to the next level," said Jeff Shaw, President and CEO of PEDCO, also known as the Public Economic Development Corp.

The plan is composed of five one Pueblo action teams.

That includes, Vision alignment, which means continuing to facilitate alignment along stakeholders and partners to achieve the vision of growth and prosperity. Next, talent pipeline optimization which means to educate the community on opportunities available at companies in Pueblo County. Thirdly, create foundational community elements which means to support the development of community. Fourthly, they hope to help existing businesses grow and attract new industries while making the Pueblo region an innovative place where businesses and talent want to be.

This plan is all composed of team members from companies like PEDCO workforce, Pueblo County and Pueblo Urban Renewal just to name a few.

They look to measure their success through their one Pueblo Economic Development Dashboard. Through this they look to track anything from the number of leads for new businesses to population growth.