Aspiring entrepreneurs learn from business owners at Bridging Blocks and Free Library event

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Bridging Blocks, a community conversation series hosted by WHYY and the Free Library of Philadelphia, continued this week at the Parkway Central Library, focusing on the impact of small businesses in Philadelphia.

Multiple special guests attended the Nov. 7 conversation, including Bridging Blocks donors Fred and Barbara Sutherland.

Fred Sutherland, the former executive vice president and chief financial officer of Philadelphia-based food service corporation Aramark, joined the conversation as an observer and a participant. He expressed Bridging Blocks being a useful tool for uniting neighbors and communities.

“I think it’s important to try to bring people together,” Sutherland said of the program. “We’re so dichotomized these days, people heading a million different directions at once. We’ve lost over time. I think a sense of community – that we really need.”

Other guests included WHYY President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Marrazzo, the Free Library of Philadelphia’s President Kelly Richards and Chief of Adult Services and Programs Veronica Britto and Thomas Ginsberg, Pew Charitable Trust’s small business expert.

Prior to group discussion, Britto and Ginsberg gave presentations. Britto provided an overview of the career services that the library currently offers, from its Business Resource and Innovation Center to financial literacy programs.

Ginsberg provided an overview of Pew’s work regarding small businesses in Philadelphia. According to Pew Research, small and midsize businesses — made up over 82% of all businesses in the city in 2016.

Additionally, Pew Research reported that immigrants made up 24% of the self-employed business owners in America, which is over the group’s population.

This statistic sparked conversation among attendees, as some wondered how small business owner demographics might shift following the 2024 presidential election. Center City resident Perry Steindel worried about what the state of self-employment will look like for immigrants under the second Trump administration.

“The whole thing with what is about to hit us with Trump and people who are undocumented … I’m worried for them,” Steindel said.

Steindel, an abstract artist, does not own a small business, but attended Bridging Blocks with the objective of “exploring the unknown.” During the conversation, he also expressed disappointment with the number of empty storefronts throughout Center City, hoping that the city can draw in small businesses to spark revitalization downtown.

Wonder, who only provided her first name, is a Center City resident and cyclist looking to launch a music and art space in Philadelphia. She said that she witnessed a decline in the number of physical storefronts downtown during her daily rides, an issue that she wants the city to amend.

“In Switzerland, [the government] actually got artists to put their artwork in some of the storefronts,” Wonder said, expressing interest in Philadelphia launching a similar program to keep empty storefronts occupied while looking for tenants.

However, for small business owners Jennifer Hunt Horton and Steve Horton, the fractured nature of the city government sometimes makes operations difficult.

The couple owns Fifth of a Farm Creations, a small business that sells jellies, jams and chutneys. Currently, the business sells its products at local farmers markets without a brick and mortar storefront.

“Departments don’t communicate and work together. They all are working with silos,” Hunt Horton said. “We as a food business have to get a food business license from the Health Department, and then we have to go to [the Department of Licenses and Inspections] to get a sidewalk permit because we don’t have a brick and mortar.”

Some aspiring small business owners, like Virginia Taylor, have faith that they can persevere even in the face of opposition. After losing her job as an optician last year, Taylor saw the chance to open her own beauty and skincare venture and jumped.

“I gave so much [to optometry] and I’m like, you know what if I give so much, I should just do it for me and just go 110%,” Taylor said.

According to the aspiring entrepreneur, Bridging Blocks helped Taylor make connections with community members and figure out where to begin.

“I didn’t even know where to start … I saw YouTube videos and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, you need this. You need to do this,’ but nobody was really saying, ‘Well, where do you get the funding?’” she said. “I have gotten a lot of good resources [at Bridging Blocks]. It’s given me a lot of good questions to ask that I didn’t even think of before.”

WHYY and the Free Library of Philadelphia will host two more Bridging Blocks conversations on the topic of small businesses on Nov. 12 and Nov. 19. For those interested in expanding their expertise network beyond the events, WHYY is hosting a business card exchange at its headquarters on Nov. 20. Visit WHYY’s website for more information.

Editor’s Note: Fred Sutherland is a member of the WHYY Board of Directors.