(Photo courtesy Pegasus Book Exchange)
Thanks to Sue for the tip. Pegasus Book Exchange in The Junction has a crowdfunding campaign going – not the first local independent business to try one to survive the COVID crunch, but the first that we’ve heard of citing this reason: The lifeline promised by a PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loan has been dangled for so long, they’re out of personal bridge funding:
We got the PPP2 loan, which was going to cover our payroll until we can all get vaccinated and open to in-store shoppers again! Hooray! Right?
Except…the bank has been telling us we will have the money “soon” for over a month now. :( In the meantime, two paydays have come and gone, and the only way we made it through was by me (Emma) and the owners (Fred and Lanthe) loaning Pegasus money, as well as not drawing our own pay. We just can’t do this again. :(
Our landlord has been flexible and we’ve reduced our new book inventory, but payroll is by far our largest expense. No reduction of expenses is going to even remotely touch what we need to pay our employees.
The Pegasus team explains further on the donation page. Not a Pegasus customer? You can learn a bit about the shop’s backstory in this 2019 story.
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