BARRE — In front of the Vermont Bicycle Shop on Main Street, owner Darren Ohl laid out Barre businesses’ path to recovery.

“The way we move forward is we buy local,” he said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. His shop, which has been closed since the onset of devastating flooding across Vermont on July 10, has sustained an estimated $200,000 worth of inventory and structural damages, according to an online fundraiser, not counting lost revenues.

In the days since the water has receded, Ohl has been sourcing the vast majority of his clean-up equipment from fellow downtown Barre business Nelson’s Ace Hardware. On lunch breaks, he and his business partner have been buying exclusively from nearby restaurants.

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“And if we (buy local), we really will come out of this way stronger. The second we do that,” he paused, trying to stifle a wave of emotion, “we’ll come through this.”

“We’ve got your back!” yelled out Sue Minter, executive director of Capstone Community Action, followed by a roar of applause from dozens of other business owners in the backdrop.

Some 15 minutes earlier, Minter officially announced the opening of the Vermont Main Street Flood Recovery Fund, which organizers said is the only small business grant pool available to owners across the Green Mountain State. 

That kind of support among community members inspired Capstone, a Barre-based anti-poverty nonprofit, to launch a similar fund in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 — and again this week, in response to the recent floods, its leaders said.

“This has been a devastating event for our little state — more devastating and more widespread in many areas than Irene,” said Minter, who helped guide the state’s recovery in 2011, when she was deputy secretary of the Agency of Transportation. “But having survived Irene and helped lead that recovery over three years, I know that we are going to recover and recover stronger.” 

Though the official announcement came early afternoon Wednesday, the fund has amassed nearly $200,000 since a soft launch mid-last week, organizers said. Grants will range from $2,500 to $10,000, with the main goal of delivering the money to the hands of business owners as quickly as possible.

Though many individuals will get support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Vermont businesses have access to federal relief only through loan offerings from the Small Business Association. 

State Treasurer Mike Pieciek, who also is a board member of the fund, said “it’s been really great” seeing Vermonters step up with monetary contributions and volunteer hours in the immediate aftermath of the flooding. But he pleaded that there is more work to be done.

“Vermonters are responding and that’s wonderful, but we need to continue to respond,” he said. “Because many of those state and federal resources won’t be around for a few more weeks in terms of actually getting cash into people’s bank accounts.”

The first round of applications to the new fund will be answered with $2,500 “quick hitters,” said Todd Bailey, a board member and executive director of the Cannabis Retailers Association of Vermont. After that funding is doled out, the board will look more closely at applicants before awarding larger grants of up to $10,000 to make sure every business is being served in an equitable fashion.

“We’ll be really trying to find pockets of underserved communities,” Bailey said.

The fund will be available to businesses of all types, including the cannabis industry, which is ineligible for any federal funding. Minter also said they are “going to focus on people who never want to ask for help,” including many historically marginalized communities and stores owned by women and Vermonters who are Black, Indigenous or people of color.

Jen Kimmich, owner of The Alchemist Brewery in Stowe, testified how much the Irene fund helped her beer making business. She also underscored how important main street shops are to small town Vermont communities.

“I know firsthand, unfortunately, how difficult it is to recover, to rebuild, to reopen and to thrive as a business once you’ve been devastated by a flood,” she said. “But if we work together, if we all dig deep, if we all support each other, our businesses will thrive. And our downtowns will become vibrant again.”

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