Pasco County small business owners and nonprofit leaders still digging out from hurricane damage have a chance Wednesday to learn how to tap into a $25 million recovery fund. The county is hosting a virtual application workshop at 1 p.m. for its Better Future Small Business & Non-Profit Recovery Program, aimed at organizations hit by Hurricanes Idalia, Helene or Milton.
The Wednesday session was announced in a post from Pasco County, Florida, Government on Facebook, which simply states the workshop will be held online at 1 p.m. on Nov. 4 so business and nonprofit operators can learn more about the program.
The recovery program itself is backed by $25 million, according to the county's CDBG-DR Action Plan, which lists Small Business and Non-Profit Recovery funding at $25,000,000. That same plan notes the money can be used for repairs, replacing equipment, restocking inventory and covering operating costs — the kinds of expenses that pile up fast after a storm knocks a business offline.
Where the Money Comes From
The Better Future program draws on a much larger pot of federal disaster recovery money flowing into Pasco County. The action plan says that in January 2025, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recognized the extent of Pasco's unmet recovery needs by announcing a direct allocation of $585.7 million, funding that falls under HUD's Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery program, or CDBG-DR.
CDBG-DR is described on the county's own site, pascocountyfl.gov, as federal HUD funding intended to assist communities with long-term disaster recovery, with Better Future serving as Pasco County's branded initiative for distributing its share of that money. The small business and nonprofit fund is one piece of that broader recovery effort, specifically carved out for organizations affected by Idalia, Helene or Milton.
What Wednesday's Workshop Covers
Beyond confirming the date and time, the publicly available materials reviewed for this story do not spell out registration steps, eligibility criteria, application requirements or how large individual awards might be. Those specifics were not included in the county's announcement or in the portions of the action plan and program webpage examined here.
What is established is the basic shape of the opportunity: a virtual workshop Wednesday afternoon meant to walk interested small business owners and nonprofit leaders through the application process for a fund built to help them recover equipment, inventory and operating capacity lost to last year's hurricanes.
