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“It’s definitely a game changer for us. A lot of our employees have been nervous and wondering what their futures would look like after we had to make those temporary layoffs. [Having received our PPP loan], our plan is to rehire everybody.” wrote Amy Wright, co-founder of Bitty and Beau’s Coffee.
 
“We were funded late last night or early this morning,” Bill Gamber, co-founder of outdoor brand Big Agnes, said on April 9th. “That was really great news for our entire organization.” 
 
I certainly slept easier that night,” Ciaran Molloy, co-owner of Woodyard Bar-B-Que, said after he saw the money from his Paycheck Protection Program loan hit his bank account.
 
“We have three restaurants in our group and between those we applied for $1.2-million dollars. We’ve gotten word that the funding is at the bank and they told me we’re signing papers this afternoon, so we’re funded,” said Buddy Cramer, managing partner at the Katy Trail Icehouse, on April 10th. 
 
“[The Paycheck Protection Program is] going to allow us to pay our employees for eight weeks and to pay their health insurance,” said Char Gentes, president and CEO of Riverside Industries, a nonprofit which assists individuals with disabilities. Keeping its employees on payroll is “the right thing to do,” Gentes added. “These are human service workers who need us to stand behind them.”
 
“[My banks] explained that we have a forgivable loan to pay all my people for the next eight weeks and feed them for the eight next weeks even if they aren’t working. I’m going to sleep good tonight,” Ron von Paulus, owner of Big Ron’s Tree Service in Miami, Florida, said after learning of the Paycheck Protection Program. 
 
“I’ve heard nothing but praise for the way this program is structured and intended to operate,” stated Jay Coburn, CEO at the Community Development Partnership in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. 
 
“This [Paycheck Protection Program] portion of the [CARES] Act is truly landmark,” William Ware, President of Amarillo National Bank said. “As long as you keep your employees on staff, this truly can be forgiven, and we’ve never seen anything like that before, and that’s what makes it so special.”
 
“There is an enormous amount of interest in these loans from small business,” Tom Bennett III, president and co-CEO of First Oklahoma Bank said. “Virtually every business and nonprofit has been negatively impacted by the coronavirus crisis and would benefit greatly from these loans.”