By Nathan Daggett / Assistant News Director

The Initiative Foundation has begun their distribution of grants to cultural malls and small businesses located in Central Minnesota. 

The St. Cloud Global Center will be one of 12 statewide cultural malls to receive a grant due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is the only cultural mall awardee outside of the Twin Cities metropolitan area.  

The Global Center is anticipated to receive a $110,000 grant and at least 50 percent of the funding must be used as rent relief for existing tenants. 

Up to $7.8 million in grants is expected to be distributed to 765 Central Minnesota small businesses. The funding for these grants will be coming from the federal CARES Act. 

The vice president for entrepreneurship at Initiative Foundation, Jeff Wig says, normally the program makes about 150 grants in a year, but with the pandemic they will make over 750 grants in just six weeks.