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RenewAll Partners with HADCO to assist small business owners

Last Updated 7/24/2024

Pop-up West Opens with Joe Public Press

Joe Cox is a passionate printmaker, recently awarded a WV Dept. Arts Culture, History- Professional Development grant so he could purchase a 1902 Potter Proof Press (pictured with him above). Joe was able to use a partnership project with RenewAll to help secure the grant and now we are featuring Joe in our pop-up shop space at our office for the holidays. Joe also attended a business plan workshop and pitch session supported by an ARC Power grant with ECDI (Columbus, Ohio) and Huntington Area Development Council. Joe has been involved with our arts advisory committee from the start and has a lot of ambitions with community outreach, especially with getting kids excited about printmaking. We have lots of ideas to explore and Joe has a multitude of new networks and resources.

Ignite Program with HADCO

Huntington Area Development Council (HADCO) officially kicked off the Ignite Huntington Entrepreneurial Bootcamp and Pitch Competition (Ignite Program or the program) Tuesday, May 23, 2023.

The Ignite program supported small business planning and included eight weekly sessions that featured business marketing, access to small business capital, and startup business planning. Each session lent itself to an end-of-program business pitch competition with each participant presenting their business plan to a judging panel in consideration for a $5,000 cash prize, entry into a larger regional pitch competition with a top prize of $10,000, and an exclusive opportunity to operate a program-sponsored pop-up retail location on 14^th Street West in Huntington.

The Ignite Huntington program was an expansion of an existing pitch competition and boot camp that started in Portsmouth, Ohio in 2020, at the Shawnee State University Kricker Innovation Hub. In 2022, the Women’s Business Center of Central Appalachia, based in Portsmouth, was awarded funding through the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) to expand the Ignite Program into several surrounding communities including Huntington. HADCO and RenewAll, are jointly coordinating the program and are bringing in a broad range of entrepreneurial and economic development partners for support. The result has led to the kick-off of Pop-up West, the temporary pop-up space available for these small business owners.

Joe Public Press is the first of these small business owners to open up in the Pop-Up West space here at RenewAll. He plans to offer workshops, and printmaking activities and can work one-on-one with customers for custom prints. Check out his work here at RenewAll and click here to learn more about Pop-Up West!