The City of South Bend will host a second Emergency Assistance Fair (EAF) on Tuesday, April 28, from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. to help businesses throughout the region connect with financing relief from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This event, held alongside CDFI Friendly South Bend — a newly-formed nonprofit organization working to connect borrowers with flexible and affordable capital — Accion Serving Illinois and Indiana, and Bankable, the South Bend Regional Chamber of Commerce, and many local financial institutions, will share resources to help the region’s small businesses keep their teams employed and contribute to our community resilience and recovery.

Both nonprofit and for-profit community businesses can learn about available financing at the Emergency Assistance Fair.

The first EAF was hosted on Friday, April 17, and provided $600,000 in grants to support small business loans by Accion and Bankable.

To find out more about available emergency assistance funding, visit https://southbendin.gov/initiative/emergency-assistance-funding/.

Lenders will be available at the event and financial institutions will provide information about the Small Business Administration relief programs. CDFI Friendly South Bend will help connect small businesses and entrepreneurs to lenders.

The EAF will be hosted virtually, and the opening informational session will begin at 1:30 p.m. and can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/EAF-General. Attendees can view the general information session during the first 30 minutes of the event, then enter as many small group discussions with individual service providers as they’d like. All participating organizations will be available to respond to questions during this time.

Following the informational session, small group discussions with providers will be held from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.