Intuit Awards Three Small Businesses $20,000 Each for Small Business Hero Day

Each small business hero was nominated for their incredible commitment to serving their local communities in Louisiana, Georgia, and Michigan.

• Family Faith Transportation (La Place, LA): Inspired by the experience of his own mother, Carlton Morris started Family Faith Transportation with the mission of giving increased mobility to the elderly and sick so they can access needed services across southern Louisiana. Today, Carlton and his small but mighty team provide comfortable transportation services, allowing their clients to maintain their dignity, independence, and ties to their communities.
  
  “As a business owner, you have to wear a lot of different hats…I’m the owner, operations manager, I manage payroll and bookkeeping. When you try and do as much as we do for our community, there are so many challenges we face to keep us going,” said Carlton Morris. “It speaks volumes to be honored as a Hero out of so many other businesses, and shows to me my work is paying off.”
  
• MASS Collective (Atlanta, GA): Established in 2012, MASS Collective was formed to fill a specific gap for historically underrepresented and under-funded artists, makers, and artisans in Atlanta. Gabriella Mooney is the business’s Executive Director and Founder and aims to provide an inclusive workspace to support the city’s rich culture of art and design. MASS Collective offers professional workshop memberships and classes for craftspeople and artisans of all levels and across a variety of disciplines and materials.
  
  “This is really a magical moment for us,” said Gabriella Mooney. “One of the things I worry about is MASS Collective not existing anymore and being recognized in this way will help us continue to serve the Atlanta community and foster the talents of our local artisans and makers in an inclusive space, which is what is most important.”
• No Fear Cafe (Detroit, MI): No Fear Cafe is a community learning center that provides fun and innovative educational programming to children and adults in marginalized communities. A strong believer in closing the learning gap, Founder and CEO Alicia McKay is focused on positively impacting educational opportunity in southeastern Michigan. No Fear Cafe offers a variety of STEM-based classes and other high-quality academic and work-readiness programming to help give members the confidence they need to excel.
  
  “I am so thankful and grateful for this recognition,” said Alicia McKay. “A big focus for us is helping to equip our students with cutting edge technology which also comes with increased costs. This recognition and award will help with those costs and with staffing for our upcoming summer programming as we continue to support learning in our community.”

In addition to $20,000, to help support these Small Business Heroes’ continued success, each winner will receive a one-year subscription to several of Intuit’s solutions for small businesses, including Intuit QuickBooks Online, Intuit Mailchimp Premium, and Intuit TurboTax Full Service Business.

An Intuit QuickBooks survey found nearly 100% of U.S. consumers agree that small businesses go above and beyond for their customers and community, and 64% say small business owners are community heroes, but should get more recognition. Small businesses are viewed as the lifeblood of their community and 73% of respondents say small businesses make their community a better place to live, by creating a stronger sense of community and jobs.

Equally important is the impact the community has on small businesses themselves. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of small business owners say they would not survive without local community support. Recent Intuit QuickBooks research also shows that small businesses foster economic growth within their communities, as nearly half (49%) of the suppliers they source the products and services they need to run their business from are other local businesses.