On this Wednesday, March 30, edition of Sundial:
PPP Loans
At the start of the pandemic, the federal government had to help small businesses survive the shutdowns that had become mandatory. They did it through PPP loans, or the paycheck protection program.
Those loans were supposed to be forgiven, if the money was used in specific ways.
And for the most part, the loans have been forgiven — but not for everyone.
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A new Miami Herald report shows that many minority-owned businesses still need to have their loans forgiven.
Ben Wieder, data reporter for the McClatchy Washington Bureau, joined Sundial to discuss what the numbers tell us:
"The percentage of loans that remain unforgiven in majority Black ZIP codes is more than three times higher than the percentage of unforgiven loans in majority white ZIP codes, while the percentage of unforgiven loans in majority Hispanic ZIP codes is more than double that of majority white ZIP codes," Wieder writes in his coverage.
You can read the full report here.
Miami NFT Week
NFTs are those non-fungible tokens — the original digital assets that can be sold and traded, like an image, or a video. NFTs, along with cryptocurrency, are part of the growing tech industry that the City of Miami wants to make a part of its identity.
How much of the effort to make Miami the hub for new tech is hype — and how much of it is already a part of our culture?
The Miami NFT Week conference is coming to Wynwood April 1-3.
The three co-founders — Gianni D'Alerta, Ted Lucas and Erik LaPaglia —joined the program to talk about how sustainable this new tech focus really is for locals.
D'Alerta helps the City of Miami with blockchain initiatives. Lucas is the founder of the record label Slip-n-Slide. And LaPaglia has supported numerous Web 3 and NFT projects as an angel investor and advisor. They all work with Venture Miami, the city government’s initiative for tech.
You can listen to the full conversation, below:
Cooking on the Ukraine/Poland border with World Central Kitchen
A local chef from South Florida is on the frontlines of the Ukraine-Russia crisis — helping to provide meals to people fleeing war.
Chef Karla Hoyos is working with the nonprofit organization World Central Kitchen. She has been working to open a new restaurant called Tacotomia in Downtown Miami.
She arrived at the Ukrainian-Polish border just days after the attacks began from Russia about a month ago — and has been there since.
We spoke with her earlier in the day Wednesday. She joined us from Przemyśl on the Poland-Ukraine border. You can hear the full conversation with her below:
