It’s hard to explain the frantic feeling of summer in Alaska to outsiders. The 24/7 sunshine, the hoardes of awestruck tourists, the fishing, berry picking, and the multitude of outdoor activities that we cram into every waking moment of our brief but beautiful summers are unique to the Last Frontier.
While it’s fun and exciting (and in the case of the fishing and berries, delicious), it can also be exhausting! Make sure to take some time from the non-stop action to stop and smell the fireweed, enjoy a meal with friends at your favorite local restaurant, or just sit and soak up the sun. You’ve got to save some energy for the State Fair in August, after all!
After you figure out how to take it a little easier over the summer, maybe you could swing by the Alaska SBDC offices and teach my staff how to do that, too? Instead of relaxing in the sun, they’ve been running the Mountain Marathon, doing the Anchorage Chamber’s Make it Monday lunches, teaching business classes, and giving presentations at the Dena’ina Center! Talk about overachievers.
On the bright side, that means they’ve got plenty of things to talk to you about to help your business grow, show you new technologies, help you secure funding, and more. If you haven’t talked to your advisor (or worse yet, don’t have one!), reach out today and get them to tell you about all the amazing programs and services we offer.
Normally, this is the part of my intro where I encourage you to go out and support local businesses (which you should totally do), but this month I also want to encourage you to reach out and support your favorite non-profits. The recent federal budget cutbacks, retraction of existing grant funding, and increased operating costs across the board have resulted in many non-profits having serious financial difficulties. Our friends over at ACLT recently announced that they are pausing operations for the summer to help them weather the loss of grant funding, which is a huge loss for indigenous entrepreneurship, and many other organizations are in the same financial boat. Until things settle down and programs figure out their new normal for funding, I hope you’ll reach out and try to help the programs that have helped you or those you care about. Whether through volunteering, donating, or just cheerleading, everything helps right now.
Which leads me to where I want to leave this month’s newsletter: we’re all in this together. Alaska is a small state spread over a large geographic area. We rely on each other to overcome living in one of the most difficult environments on the planet. Together, we’ve built communities, developed technologies, grown industries, and built infrastructure through perseverance and ingenuity. We’ve solved problems and overcome difficulties that other states couldn’t even comprehend, and there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll do it again.
The Alaska SBDC tries to reflect that spirit of perseverance and community in all of our day-to-day activities. We’re here to help you and your business succeed, and having worked with all of you for almost forty years, we know better than anyone that you’re doing the same for your communities and neighbors every day. Together we can make sure that Alaska continues to be a place for big ideas, big dreams and big fun.
In the meantime, may your freezers be full of fish, your buckets full of berries, your days full of sunshine and your businesses full of clients. We’ll sleep in the fall!
