A friend recently shared that since being forced to stay home due to the current "Stay Home" orders, she is teaching her husband to cut her hair. I told her to teach him how to do a pedicure as well and make it a full-service spa experience. She laughed, but one of the things that has happened due to COVID-19 is many self-employed businesses are being forced to close and they may not recover. Think about all the service providers who are sitting at home who don't have an "employer" to pay for their time off. Hair dressers, nail salons, and those who message our aches and pains.
So many small business owners need your help. They are the service industry that supports nearly 50% of our economy and have less than 200 employees. Service providers often are single owners who provide labor in exchange for a living; painters, auto mechanics, salon owners, tax consultants, and counselors to name a few. Many who are trying to run a non-profit business are on their own, out of work, with no job to go back to. They will have to rebuild from scratch everything they lost over the past months. Non-profit owners who rely on the generosity of others are suffering because they don't qualify for unemployment because they are self-employed.
I experienced this first hand when I tried to get a small business loan and was told that my disability retirement meant I didn't have 2 years of tax returns and so I didn't qualify. In an effort to keep our doors open to service the mentally wounded, Encouragers' therapists work from home providing Telehealth. Often, technology creates a barrier for those who are without technology or who are challenged by the complications of Telehealth. Client's decline services all together waiting for when we can return to the office and COVID-19 and government directives continue to further the financial burdens. The decreased income and financial insecurity for the company impacts the therapists who are working so hard to serve.
Encouragers Counseling & Training Centers is ready and able to press into the challenge and grow toward blessing others who need our help, be we need help as well. If you can spare a little of the blessings you've received--please remember your neighborhood counseling center who remembers you. We are here to help provide hope to others and we need your help to do it.
Please select the DONATIONS tab and click on the DONATE button and be blessed as you bless others. 100% of your offering goes to the care of others. We thank you for your generosity and your love for others.
"A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed."
Proverbs 11:25 (NIV)
Day 81: Refreshed