A Jefferson business was recently awarded a national grant for improvements for their product. 

Greene Bean Coffee is a recipient of a $10,000 Backing Small Businesses Grant from Main Street America and American Express. According to Main Street America, this grant helps local businesses promote sustainable growth, enhancing long-term resilience and increases the local impact.  

Owner Reagan Osborne says being in the Main Street Historic Downtown District, Jefferson Matters sent an email to a variety of businesses last summer with this grant opportunity and she knew this would fit for what she wanted to do at the coffee shop. She explains the details of what the funds will be used for.

“I’m going to be using them for technology for consistency and quality, so that we can keep up the highest quality in our production of roasting coffee, and make our processes more reproducible. That’s always been the important thing. It’s always been an art but adding some science into that art makes it even more consistent so that everybody gets the same experience.”     

Osborne is thankful for Jefferson Matters alerting her of this kind of opportunity that she may not have otherwise been fully aware of. 

“Especially when I get a direct recommendation to the businesses and a lot of communities don’t have that. They don’t have someone that’s speaking really for them as a small business to get outside investment that’s not in the community investing in business right here in our little community, our Main Street community.” 

According to Main Street America and American Express, 400 grants of $10,000 were awarded across the country and Greene Bean Coffee joins eight other small businesses in Iowa that were the recent recipients. Click here to see the full grant recipient list.