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MIKE GETS IT. MIKE GETS IT DONE.

THE ENDURING LEGACY OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION CONTINUES TO STAND IN THE WAY OF CREATING WEALTH IN BLACK COMMUNITIES.

CHILDREN WITH A GOOD EDUCATION ARE MORE LIKELY TO ACHIEVE THE AMERICAN DREAM.

KEEPING KIDS OUT OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IS THE KEY TO A BRIGHT FUTURE. MIKE’S GREENWOOD INITIATIVE IS A COMPREHENSIVE NATIONAL APPROACH TO CREATING GENERATIONAL WEALTH FOR BLACK AMERICANS. IT INCLUDES: • Creating 1 million new Black homeowners. • Supporting the development of 100,000 new Black-owned businesses. • Investing $70 billion in neighborhoods that need it most.

DURING HIS TIME AS MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY, MIKE: • Increased teacher salaries by 43% and Black student graduation rates by 53%. • Reduced crime to historic lows by cutting the murder rate in half and reducing juvenile detention by 36%.

MIKE BLOOMBERG IS THE ONLY DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WITH A PLAN TO BUILD REAL WEALTH FOR BLACK AMERICA AND A TRACK RECORD FOR GETTING THINGS DONE.

For more information visit MikeForBlackAmerica.com

Create your business and financial plans W rite up your plans for a targeted, profitable business. Starting a business can be excit ing, but that excitement may be overshadowed by anxiety if you start this new adventure without detailed re search and plans to guide you along the way. In addition to guidance, a • Branding: This is the personality and messaging behind your busi ness. Maybe you want the public to see your business as innovative and cutting-edge or maybe your business is more about establish ing a trusting relationship with customers. • Market trends: These are the market is everyday families with toddlers, you’ll have to create a mar keting plan to reach them in places they’ll be. This could mean phys ically locating to where they are, like down the street from a school or park, or paying for ads on websites they use most.

Your business plan may also be these costs. You should also con sider speaking with current professionals in your industry, such as vendors, suppliers, and indus try groups. • Break-even point: When your business brings in just enough money to cover expenses. If you need help figuring that out, The whether this is a worthy business opportunity.

Evaluate your financing op tions

There are many ways to fund your business, but you have to choose the one that works for you. “You can put in sweat equity, use credit, raise venture capital, or even solicit funds

business and financial plan can help to attract investors and open up more options for funding your idea.

After you’ve determined that you have a viable business idea and your market research has given you enough insights, it’s important to ap ply this information to your business planning — especially as it relates to money.

Create your business and mar keting plan

Using the results of your market research, you can outline: • Details for your service or prod uct: This means a description of what it is and what the market is for it. challenges facing your potential industry, what’s most popular useful when you reach the stage of hiring staff. You will want to hire

Balance offers a good rundown. Setting up a consultation with an with crowdfunding,” says Dr. Dennis Kimbro, a business professor and

with your competition, and how you plan to address those factors.

people that fit the personality of your business and whose values align

• Objectives: What is your top pri ority in each aspect of your business, including, funding, marketing, and day-to-day operations? • Strategies: How do you plan to accomplish everything? Remem ber to be very detailed.

By incorporating the results of your market research into the over all vision of your business, you can better align your marketing efforts to drive sales and give yourself a com petitive edge.

For instance, if your target with it. Referring to your plan can help guide you in that process.

Understand the financials Next, analyze what it’ll take to

start, grow, and manage your com

pany. A great source for business

finance insights is the Hands on

Banking ® website. Fundamentally,

you should know: • Startup costs: How much you’ll

need to pay to get your idea go ing. Free resources like the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) can help you calculate accountant to help you estimate costs could also be helpful in the long run. • Projections for profitability: Pre dictions about future income. It’s important to be realistic with these: Forbes gives a helpful guide on how to best forecast the revenue your business will likely bring in. This is also where the market research you’ve done can play a big role by helping you determine market size and the de mand for your business.

Once you have these estimates, it will be much easier to pin down best-selling author. “But which way is best for your business?” The SBA suggests considering both your personal and business re sources to help you arrive at the right financing strategy.

For instance, do you have: • Savings that you can draw from to get started?

- Depending on your situation, you may think about investing your own savings. Although this may not pay for everything, doing so shows lenders how much you believe in your own idea. • Collateral to secure a business

loan request?

- If yes, you could be ready for a loan or line of credit from a financial institution. For this option, you’ll want to have a good relationship with your banker so they can assist you in setting it up.

When starting out, all of these questions may not apply to your business just yet. However, if you approach a bank or investors, these are the questions they’ll likely ask. They’re also factors to keep in mind should your business outgrow your initial plan.

As you get closer to launching, your financial and business plans may change, and that’s OK. Re gardless of how they evolve, having a plan in place to guide you on this venture could make all the difference for your success.

© 2019 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved.

Minority or Woman Business Owner?

Make NYC your

Find out how the Department of Small Business Services can help you get certified.

next customer.

nyc.gov/getcertified Call 311 or visit

WYNN Optics 2020 NEW YEAR SPECIALS! “We are offering a wonderful experience and an opportunity to become family”

$45 Children Eye Exam

$150 Children Glasses (2 pairs of polycarbonate lenses)

$109 Packages (includes exam, frames and lenses)

$199 Frames, exam and crizal (antiglare lenses)

$125 Contact lenses fitting w/ trial pair

QUEENS Queens Upcoming Events FREE Recurring ev ents in Queens: York College (94-20 Guy R Brewer Blvd): Every Tuesday, 6:00pm York College Jazz Workshop with Professor Mark Adams M.S. 216 (64-20 175th Street): Every Wednesday, 6:00pm American Sign Language Class for Adults

Now Until March 22 8:00-4:00pm

Art in the Garden: Recollections: Highlights from our Permanent Collection

See select works from the first ten years of exhibitions in QBG’s art gallery. 4350 Main Street. FREE drop-ins.

Now Until February 16 12:00-5:00pm

Lunar New Year Exhibition

Celebrating the Lunar New Year with the community, Flushing Town Hall presents “A Good Beginning, Here” a cross-cultural exhibition that illuminates 8 diaspora artists who can trace their roots back in China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Their works embody unique life stories and ideas rooted in the East and evolved in the West. The gallery is open on weekends only. Flushing Town Hall. 137-35 Northern Blvd. $5 suggested donation.

Now Until December 2020

Jay Jaxon: 40 Years of Fashion Design Brilliance

The Jay Jaxon exhibition celebrates the life of Queens native, Jay Jaxon as an American Fashion Designer, Haute Couture Designer, and Costume Designer. Further, it restores the history of Jaxon by displaying artifacts and objects from his personal design archives as well as primary sources from the research of fashion scholar and guest curator Rachel Fenderson. QHS. 143-35 37th Avenue. FREE.

February 13-17 Queens Week of Service

Join the 14 Queens Community Boards and the Borough President’s Office for a Queens Week of Service. Donate items like toothpaste, body lotion, body wash, zippered hoodies, and sweatpants with drawstrings for veterans. Items may be dropped off at Queens Borough Hall. 120-55 Queens Blvd. Other locations of Queens included!

February 14 8:00pm Carnegie Hall Citywide: Pistolera

Critically acclaimed New York band Pistolera has toured around the world with its accordion-driven dance songs since its debut in 2005. Anchored by the Spanish vocals of Sandra Velasquez and buoyed by accordion, guitar, bass and percussion, Pistolera’s sound is grounded in traditional Mexican music with powerful, socially conscious lyrics. Come ready to dance! Flushing Town Hall. 137-35 Northern Blvd. FREE with RSVP. February 15 2:30-4:30pm It’s Electric! Magnets Program

This program, presented by Con Edison, will go over how magnets work while making a fun interactive art sculpture. Visitors will get to create dancing bugs that wiggle and grove with the power of magnets. Visitors will even get to bring their dancing creations home with them at the end of the program. Come by and learn about magnets. QHS. 143-35 37th Ave. $10.

February 15 1:00- 5:00pm

International Mutant Bidoun hosts a day devoted to the lostfound work of the Egyptian-born Lebanese artist Nicolas Moufarrege (1947-1985). A wildly prodigious visual artist, writer, and curator, Moufarrege made work that remains at once wry, sophisticated, and exuberant in its pursuit of the “idiosyncratic/universal.” Contributors will speak to and about the distinct cosmopolitan enclaves in which Moufarrege lived, including Alexandria, Egypt in the 1950s, and those where he worked: Paris and Beirut in the 1960s and 1970s, and New York in the early 1980s. Queens Museum. New York City Building. FREE with RSVP.

February 15 12:00pm Native American Arts Social

Join for an afternoon of artwork, drumming & singing, dancing in traditional regalia, conversations, sharing of stories, social dances, and community building over refreshments. Native artists will also be sharing and selling their artwork. Hosted by American Indian Community House in collaboration with NativeTec, Shinnecock Foundation of the Arts, The First Nations Theater Guild, and Safe Harbors Indigenous Collective. Flushing Town Hall. 137- 35 Northern Blvd. FREE. February 16 1:00pm Valerie Green/ Dance Entropy “Home” FTH Space Grantee, Valerie Green/Dance Entropy presents the third phase of “HOME” an international collaboration between Dance Entropy and choreographers from diverse countries. Wrapping up a residency at FTH, Indian choreographer Ashley Lobo approaches the idea of home as a going back to the self on VG/DE company members. The performance will also offer a

HARLEM COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS DON’T MISS ANOTHER ISSUE SUBSCRIBE TODAY! GO TO PAGE 28 Visit our website to learn more: www.harlemcommunitynews.com collection of short repertory favorites. 137-35 Northern Blvd. FREE. February 16 Family Sunday Workshop Spend Sunday afternoons at the Queens Museum and enjoy art-making, dance, music and storytelling. New York City Building. FREE.

February 17 7:30pm Women’s Worship Service

Join Rev. Elaine and the women of Allen for the first Women’s Worship Service of Women’s Season 2020 with guest preacher, Evangelist Vandelyn Kennedy. Ladies…we are UNSTOPPABLE!! The Greater Allen AME Cathedral. 110-31 Merrick Blvd.

February 17, 19, 21 1:00-4:00pm Midwinter Craft Day Winter break means more time for crafting! Join for three days of Midwinter School Break for a fun, free family craft at King Manor! 150-03 Jamaica Ave. February 18-21 1:00-2:30pm Mid-Winter Break Family Programs

Enjoy a new family-friendly activity each day over mid-winter break at Queens Botanical Garden. Activities include art workshops, arts and crafts, and exploring nature. 4350 Main Street. $10 a day.

February 27 5:00-7:00pm Pop-Up Piano at Cardinal Cafe feat. Prof Mark Adams

The Music Program presents a special concert to inaugurate the new Pop-Up Piano at Cardinal Cafe. Enjoy a cup of coffee along with this special concert! York College. 94- 20 Guy R. Brewer Blvd. FREE to attend. February 26 6:00-8:00pm Black History Month Celebration

Celebrate African American Heritage at the Helen Marshall Community Center at Queens Borough Hall. 120-55 Queens Blvd. RSVP at queensbp. org/rsvp. FREE.

Call today to connect with a SENIOR LIVING ADVISOR INDEPENDENT LIVING • ASSISTED LIVING • MEMORY CARE

UNDERSTAND YOUR OPTIONS — Learn the di erent types of senior care available

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A Place for Mom has helped over a million families fi nd senior living solutions that meet their unique needs. Our Advisors are trusted, local experts who can help you understand your options. A Place for Mom has helped over a million families fi nd solutions local experts

Joan Lunden, journalist, best-selling author, former host of Good Morning America and senior living advocate. Harlem Community Newspapers | February 13. 2020