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LEVEL UP

Funded by $75,000 from public and private sources, Genesis Block launched its accelerator program this year to help local minority business owners. A partnership between NC IDEA and N.C. Black Entrepreneurship Council awarded a $50,000 grant to the Back on the Block Minority Accelerator, which also received $25,000 from New Hanover County. Among the businesses in the first cohort of 10 is Creators’ Print House, a largeformat digital printing company that specializes in apparel and is based on Princess Place. “We’ve been doing this for five years, and we were trying to figure out what would be our next step in terms of getting to the next level,” said Bobby Flood (right), who owns the business with Daniel Anderson (left). “Watching Genesis Block working with black entrepreneurs, it (the application) came across my newsfeed. It seemed like a great opportunity for us to learn and get a little bit of guidance to get to scale.”

photo by TERAH WILSON