Small Business Success = Resilient Communities
The Volunteers of Legal Service (VOLS) Microenterprise Project would like to express our gratitude for your support of our mission to provide critically needed transactional legal services to New York City’s most vulnerable small businesses. The ripple effects of COVID-19 continue to impact every small business in the city, and VOLS continues to face extraordinary demand for our services.
In 2021, VOLS’ services benefited over 1,000 low- and moderate-income small business owners and their household members. We partnered with 38 law firms and in-house legal departments, as well as 35 community-based organizations throughout all 5 boroughs. Our services reached those who need it most, including women-, minority-, veteran-, and immigrant-owned small businesses who cannot otherwise afford legal counsel.
Please consider a year-end donation to VOLS in support of our Microenterprise Project.
Small businesses in New York City continue to face crippling financial burdens and economic uncertainty. But even with this challenging landscape, we are also seeing hopeful examples of entrepreneurs launching new businesses or adjusting their businesses to move forward.
One such business, Earnest Foods, came to VOLS for assistance with launching their organic supermarket in southeast Queens. The co-owner, Earnest Flowers, had a long-standing vision to provide healthy food options to his community and to sell goods made by primarily Black-owned businesses and local vendors. VOLS assisted our client to negotiate a new lease with favorable terms that gave him ample time to build out the store before rental obligations began. Earnest Foods opened in November 2021 and has thrived in the Queens community, as profiled recently in Queens Chronicle. In the words of Earnest Flowers:
“We have products that my neighbors and many in my community go outside our neighborhoods to shop for… We have a big selection of locally produced products…[and] next to every locally produced product a person’s picture and their logo. People will learn that this honey was made by somebody here who is local or from someone with a Black-owned business.”
The staff of the VOLS Microenterprise Project, along with our volunteer attorneys and community partners, head into the New Year ready to advance our important work helping the City’s small businesses. Thank you for being a part of the VOLS community.
All our best,
Kristen and the VOLS Microenterprise Project Team
Kristen Belolan
Director, Microenterprise Project
Volunteers of Legal Service
Support VOLS’ Year-End Appeal Campaign
As 2021 comes to an end, resilience is on our minds at VOLS. Please help New York City’s small businesses to bounce forward. Donate today to help fund VOLS’ free, citywide legal services through #BrooklynGives, an initiative of the Brooklyn Community Foundation.
In October of 2021, VOLS welcomed Kristen Belolan as the new Director of the VOLS Microenterprise Project. Kristen brings over 15 years of experience in private business law practice and legal industry business development and professional development to VOLS. We also welcomed Kevin Perry, the Project’s first Equal Justice Works Fellow (sponsored by Greenberg Traurig), to expand on our work helping underserved small business owners in Northeast Brooklyn. Lastly, Celena Gonzalez joined the team in November as a Law Graduate. Kevin and Celena join Kristen and Staff Attorneys Julia Currie and Imran Hossain to provide crucial legal support for New York City’s underserved small business owners.
VOLS Microenterprise Project services in 2021 were provided free to New York City’s small businesses through the powerful collaboration of the VOLS legal team and pro bono volunteers. Together, we provide small businesses with a broad range of transactional legal services ranging from business formation, contract drafting and review, commercial leasing, trademarks, and employment matters.
In addition to direct legal services, VOLS has spent decades building and strengthening partnerships with pivotal grassroots organizations that are firmly planted on the ground in New York City’s neighborhoods. These community organizations act as an essential connection to generate client referrals, conduct local outreach, and co-host legal education efforts. This past year, we co-hosted legal clinics and presentations on topics including entity selection and formation, commercial leasing, contracts, intellectual property, and tax. And we created guides for small business owners to the bankruptcy process and the COVID-19 Emergency Protect Our Small Businesses Act Of 2021. An additional component of our 2021 outreach initiatives included expanding our efforts to reach more Spanish-speaking small business owners.
Finally, VOLS has continued to advocate for equitable and thoughtfully-designed policies to safeguard NYC’s small business community. As part of our advocacy efforts in 2021, we filed an amicus brief urging the NY Court of Appeals to uphold critical small business protections, and those City laws were partially upheld on appeal. In addition, VOLS testified to the NY City Council’s Committee on Small Business in support of a targeted commercial rent stabilization measure and the Council’s Committees on Small Business and Veterans in support of comprehensive and robust legal support for veteran entrepreneurs.
The VOLS Microenterprise Project thanks our community-based and bono partners, our supporters, and our clients for their trust and resilience during one of New York City’s most challenging years.