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Council approves final $7,500 of forgivable loan for Cocoa microfactory business
Summary
The council unanimously approved the remaining $7,500 of an Upstart COCO forgivable loan for Alyssa Otto to open a textile microfactory and teach sewing classes; the business completed We Venture training and agreed to community workshops as part of the forgivable loan terms.
The Cocoa City Council voted unanimously to approve the remaining $7,500 of an Upstart COCO forgivable loan to Alyssa Otto to support a textile microfactory and small-business operations at 313 Brevard Avenue, unit 4A.
The Upstart COCO program combines city funding and business support from We Venture (Florida Tech College of Business). Otto completed the We Venture Ignite 360 training and mentoring, which staff and We Venture presented as part of the loan recommendation to the council. Catherine Rudloff of We Venture told the council Otto "received over 12 hours of coaching" and had improved her financial planning and operations to prepare to hire staff and expand retail and class offerings.
Otto, who said the mentoring was "truly life changing," plans to host free children’s summer sewing workshops and elementary-school sewing instruction as part of the loan’s community-enrichment requirement. The forgivable-loan agreement approved by the council includes those outreach commitments and authorizes the city manager to execute the final loan documents.
The council and staff noted the program’s dual goals of small-business assistance and community benefit; the loan is structured as forgivable when the recipient meets milestones and community commitments. Otto said she had opened operations in April and will offer adult classes as well as youth programming.
