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Business Programs Success Stories
Georgia

Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Programs

Outline of Need:
Fresh Beginnings, Inc. needs to expand the facility to 77,000 sq. ft. This was needed to take advantage of increasing volume of business. The Advertising Specialty Division, for example, has seen its sales double every year, but the lack of facilities in the existing building hindered the storing, packing and shipping of specialty gifts.

How Rural Development Helped:
Rural Development provided a Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan for $3.6 million in the winter of 2000.

The Result:
Fresh Beginnings employs 350 people and specializes in providing customer retention services to corporate clients with large volume and big-ticket products. The company’s trade market is fresh-baked tins of chocolates, sugary confections and cookies. As a result of the Rural Development Loan, the Call Center was expanding from 16 to 48 workstations. The expansion resulted in 45 new jobs.

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Rural Business Enterprise Grant

Outline of Need:
The Millenium Center in Cuthbert, GA is a 20-acre campus that provides substance abuse treatment to women with children for up to a year and that allows the entire family to live on site while the woman receives treatment. The campus is in Randolph County, one of the poorest counties in Georgia and part of the Southern Lower Chattahoochee Council of Governments Champion Community, and is the result of many partners. The center-needed assistance with the child care facility, the administration building, and a turn lane and welcome gate.

How Rural Development Helped:
Rural Development provided $1,074,000 through a direct CF loan to assist with the child-care facility and the administration building; a subsequent RBEG for $110,000 was used for a turn lane and welcome gate.

The Results:
At the time of the grand opening in FY2004, 21 children had been reunified with their natural parent following an out of home placement and 15 have been able to remain with their natural parent as a result of parental participation in The Millenium Center program. Twenty homes are on site. The treatment center receives an annual rent of $410,000 from the state for tenants and provides 30 jobs.

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Outline of Need:
DCUTS is a rural public transportation system started in Nov. 1999 in the Southwest Georgia United Empowerment Zone. Because of this service, elderly residents can get to medical appointments. Welfare recipients have been able to go back to work or get to G.E.D. or vocational training, and child-care facilities. Due to the high demand for this service, DCUTS needed to expand its program to support the needs of the community.

How Rural Development Helped:
RBEG, RCDI, and technical assistance from Rural Development.

The Results:
2002 Dooly County Small Business of the Year and 2002 Excelsior Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Provider in devising, implementing and documenting a Best Practice. DCUTS has been nationally recognized and is used as a blueprint for success in the implementation of rural public transportation infrastructure.