The Local Initiatives Support Corporation has announced emergency grants totaling $55 million from Lowe's Home Improvement in support of nearly twenty-eight hundred small businesses across the United States.

Awarded over the past ten months, the majority of grants (89 percent) were awarded to minority-owned business, while 67 percent went to woman-owned businesses and 67 percent were awarded in underresourced communities. Nearly 45 percent of the total disbursed was targeted to businesses in rural America, many of which also endured damages in 2020 from hurricanes, fires, and other natural disasters, while $1.4 million was awarded to forty-eight business development organizations in the urban and rural areas of twenty-four states and Puerto Rico.

Funding was awarded to entrepreneurs across a spectrum of industries, including restaurants, caterers, construction trades, small farmers, and artisans. Grant recipients include the Snack Shop in rural Louisiana, KungFood Chu's Amerasia Café in Covington, Kentucky, Indy Violins in Indianapolis, and Twenty Eleven Construction in Chicago.