Photo by Zakarie Faibis via Wikimedia Commons
On Monday, the New York Mets and its partner Fiserv gave $10,000 grants to 10 Asian-owned businesses in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, CBS New York reports.
Team president Sandy Alderson announced the grants alongside Mr. and Mrs. Met, the team mascots, at Citi Field.
“We hope the grants you received today from Fiserv will help you as you have weathered the pandemic and now position yourselves for reopening,” Alderson said, according to CBS New York.
Asian American businesses have suffered greatly during the pandemic. By the end of March 2020, sales for Asian American businesses were down more than 60 percent, NBC News reports. Around 90 percent of small Asian American firms in the New York Fed study lost revenue.
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“It was pretty scary,” Coffee Project NY founder Chi Sum Ngai, and one of the recipients of the grants, told CBS New York.
Fiserv hopes the grants will provide aid and relief to struggling AAPI businesses.
“We know so many small businesses have been impacted by the pandemic, particularly Asian-owned small business,” Cindy Wen, the company’s senior vice president of finance, told CBS New York. “In the wave of the violence and events of the last, we felt at our company it was really important to give back to the community.”
Ngai said the grant will help make the working environment better for her employees.
“When this money came in, I’m like um … It’s time to put in thought how do we make workspace more efficient. It’s better for everyone,” Ngai told CBS New York.
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