SCRANTON, Pa. — When Asia Miller opened a new restaurant in downtown Scranton last year, she knew it'd be a challenge.
What she didn't know was that just three weeks later, she'd have to close her doors.
"It was so exciting and then 'boom!' like someone burst my bubble. I was nervous, excited, all these feelings at once, and then a worldwide pandemic hit and I wasn't ready, you know, no one's ready for that," Miller said.
The statewide shutdown forced most of Miller's business at Paradise Soulfood & Sweets online.
"When I first opened, I wasn't even thinking about any online stuff yet. I thought in the future, maybe get a website, some type of delivery, but when the pandemic hit, literally having an online presence with Grubhub and them was the only thing that helped me stay open. So it became everything," said Miller.
The restaurant started using delivery apps such as DoorDash and GrubHub, but they turned out to be pretty expensive.
"I'm paying almost close to like $1,000 a month just to be online with them," said Miller.
But soon, Paradise Soulfood & Sweets will have a brand new website of its own, free of charge.
The city of Scranton is giving Lackawanna College $150,000 in federal CARES Act funding to support a program that will help struggling small businesses go digital.
"We study a lot about what restaurants will need and what we can provide for them as the local training institution in this area, so we read a lot of reports and data that restaurants will need to have online ordering capabilities and websites," said Stephanie Decker, Associate Vice President of Social & Economic Impact for Lackawanna College.
Not only will the college fund the creation of the website, but train the businesses on how to maintain it as well.
Paradise Soulfood & Sweets is the first grant recipient, there are still 36 slots left for other Scranton businesses.
You can apply by contacting Michael Jensen, Director of Lackawanna College’s Venture Lab, at jensenm@lackawanna.edu.