By: Charles Romans
Carter County Times
Grayson Chamber of Commerce Director Mike Nelson began the February meeting discussing upcoming projects the chamber has in store for 2026.
“It is time for us to get busy on Memory Days,” Nelson told chamber members. “This is year 55 for Memory Days in Grayson.”
Thresholds of that nature are extremely important and should be treated as such, he said.
“We have a lot of cool things planned for this year’s Memory Days,” Nelson said. “Obviously, we can’t do it without your support and help. There are different levels you can sponsor, and different benefits you get by those levels.”
Nelson said that getting sponsors early helps the chamber plan better for entertainment at the event. Currently Nelson said the band Sunday Best is confirmed for the Saturday of the event, with Dustin Burchett opening.
The featured speakers at the February meeting were Michelle Spriggs from the Kentucky Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and Amanda Kelly from Southeast Kentucky Economic Development Corporation (SKEDC).
“We are administered through the University of Kentucky,” Spriggs told chamber members. “We are funded in part through the Small Business Administration, and many other stakeholders.”
“We provide free business coaching services to all the clients we assist,” Spriggs said. “We do loan packaging, projections, feasibility analysis, marketing, and we do a huge amount of free training. We service all 120 counties throughout Kentucky, we have 10 centers throughout the state, and about 35 business coaches.”
Spriggs told the chamber she has been involved with SBDC since 2009.
“So, I have been doing this for a bit,” she said. “Things have changed a lot, and we have seen a lot of great things.”
The main topic of Spriggs talk to the chamber involved the Childcare Initiative, which she said came into play after a meeting she was part of with Truist Bank.
“I started thinking about the need we had,” Spriggs said. “We need more childcare centers and more childcare centers that provide better care for the ones that are already operating.”
Spriggs said she thought about what could be done, and how it could work with the CRA grants they have available. Spriggs said she realized she needed a stakeholder that could help her make this idea a reality, and someone she had trained with – Amanda Kelly – came to mind.
“She was the first person I called,” Spriggs said. “Because I knew she had the same passion and the same work ethic.”
Spriggs said Kelly’s response was an immediate yes.
“So, we wrote the first grant,” Spriggs said. “It didn’t get awarded, so we wrote the second grant.”
The second grant was funded, she said, and now they are currently in their third year of operation.
“It’s one of the most passionate things I have ever done at the Kentucky SBDC,” she said.
Spriggs said she has met many amazing, passionate people that are invested in the future of the children of Kentucky.
Kelly, who serves as Small Business Training Director for the SKEDC, also talked to the chamber about her and Spriggs’ project.
“We are a small business lender,” Kelly said of her organization. “We are located in Somerset, but we cover all of the Fifth Congressional District. So, we do loans throughout eastern and southern Kentucky.”
Kelly said she heads the technical department, so she deals directly with small businesses to help them get whatever they need to make them successful.
“With childcare business we realized pretty early on that childcare is a passion business you do because you love the children. And a lot of them are not seen as real businesses.”
“They absolutely are real businesses,” Kelly said definitively. “But they are not viewed that way. They are viewed more as a babysitting service, but that is so far from the truth. That’s not what quality childcare service is.”
Kelly said that she and Spriggs are involved in helping childcare business owners to start thinking like business owners. They hope to accomplish that by helping business owners to examine their profit margins and other financial concerns, and to understand other business needs such as payroll costs. Kelly said these things are crucial to any business, but especially childcare because it is regulated by the state.
“There is a cap to what you can make,” Kelly said. “The state tells you how many children you can have in that childcare center.”
Another challenge, she said, is that the vast majority of the children are funded by the state, and there is a limit to what the state will pay for each child. But, she said, the challenges can be managed. And her and Spriggs are there to help with that management, so she encourages everyone connected to childcare to reach out for training and potential business management.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
