Jess Mador

Mandy Grosko’s company, Ella Bella Homemade makes small batch gluten-free flour and baking mixes. Kait Brown’s Savorista Coffee makes small-batch decaf and half-caf coffees. As the women grew their businesses, a friendship was born, and now they say the pandemic has reminded them that it’s important to connect beyond the bottom line.

Vaniti Byrd is the founder and owner of BabaLove Organics, a small-batch organic, plant based skin care company and LaKeisha Grant is the company data strategist. Vaniti started Baba Love in her home kitchen before branching out into a storefront early last year. She says small retail businesses like hers are still facing shipping and delivery delays.

In this edition of Bouncing Back – Dayton Small Businesses Survive the Pandemic, we hear from Elizabeth Wiley, known as Wiley, and Liz Valenti, two of three chef-owners from Meadowlark Restaurant and Wheatpenny Oven and Bar.

After a successful Fortune 500 sales career, Chad Diggs took the leap to entrepreneurship and became his own boss. Now, he owns a number of Miami Valley businesses. All saw a steep drop in sales as the pandemic took hold in 2020. But one business has since rebounded bigger than ever. It’s an online gift-basket business called Edible Arrangements in Kettering. Diggs is a Trotwood native and University of Toledo college football athlete who says the rollercoaster of the pandemic is testing his leadership skills like never before.

In this installment of Bouncing Back – Dayton Small Businesses Survive the Pandemic, we meet a mother daughter team named Paula Willis and Alleah Cooks. Their business revolves around their love of plants and they specialize in terrariums works of art made with living plants.

Carly Short and Amanda Hensler are part of a group of friends who own several popular Oregon District businesses including Heart Mercantile. They say the past year has been especially traumatic for business owners who also experienced the 2019 Oregon District mass shooting. It happened across the street from Heart Mercantile’s storefront.

With record numbers of coronavirus cases and hospital admissions now surging across the state, there are signs the pandemic is taking a deeper toll on some Miami Valley health workers

Ohio United States Senators Weigh In On 2020 Presidential Contest

Statewide polls opened at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday and Ohio was already on track to continue its record breaking voter turnout. By Monday, the Ohio Secretary of State reported more than 3 million Ohioans had already voted early or absentee before Election Day itself, a number representing 60 percent of the total votes cast in the entire 2016 general election.

After another weekend of long lines for early voting, Tuesday is Election Day. And in this year of heightened anxiety, polarization and pandemic what’s driving Ohio voters as they head to the polls?