Rotary Club of Sparks Centennial Sunrise Awards 11 Grants

The Rotary Club of Sparks Centennial Sunrise has awarded 11 $500 grants to Sparks based small businesses impacted by COVID-19. “Local businesses have been so generous to help our Club raise funds in years past, and we wanted to give back to them in an extraordinarily challenging year,” Club President Kristopher Dahir said.

“There were 11 businesses that submitted applications, and we were able to support them with funds raised at our annual golf tournament,” said Ricci Rodriguez-Elkins, the grants administrator for the Club’s small business grants program. “We honor each and every one of these business owners for sustaining their operations in a tough year that included closures and severely limited access to their services.” They are:

Alphabet Academy. Child care for families in need. With eleven weeks of low attendance, they were forced to lay off employees.

Bawarchi Indian Cuisine. Fine dine-in restaurant featuring authentic Indian cuisine. Temporary closure and limitations on dining capacity have hit restaurants particularly hard

Chemtrue LLC. Carpet, tile and upholstery cleaning. COVID-19 hit during their usually busy time in the spring.

Devin Gil salon. Hair and nail salon closed for 8 weeks had a severe impact on 2020 revenues.

Greenbrae Trophy Center. With sports events closed down in 2020, Greenbrae’s main source of revenue evaporated.

Music with Confidence. Music education and performances for children with disabilities and emotional issues. Summer camp and instruction were cancelled.

Northern Nevada Math Club. Focused on children grades 1-12 to increase skills in math, logic and problem solving.

Om Sweet Ohm Design Lab. Laser-cut jewelry and home accessories. Craft shows were cancelled this year which provided this business’s main source of sales.

Parlour House. Another hair and nail salon that had to close its doors for several weeks.

Razors Edge Barber Shop. Hair and personal services such as Razors Edge were hit hard. During closure, rent and utilities still had to be paid with no income.

The Rock Thrift Store. Nonprofit services were also hit hard with closures, and this grant will help them support their Project 150 Reno after several weeks of closure in the spring.

The Rotary Club of Sparks Centennial Sunrise is one of 34,000 clubs around the world. Rotary International's signature cause is the eradication of polio, and the end is in sight with just three countries in the world with endemic cases. This year local and international clubs have also provided assistance for COVID-19 needs worldwide. The Club plans to resume its regular meetings for breakfast at the Red Hawk Event Center on Thursday mornings in the near future, and guests are welcome to drop in to learn more about this active club and service organization. More details on the Club are available on the website at https://sparkscentennialrotary.com/