Hope Rising provides early learning and education programs for ages 3 months to 12 years old. “It was a lifeline to help us weather the storm,” TafarI said.Įllen Bryant-Brown and volunteers via Wells Fargo via Wells FargoĪnother female business owner who faced challenges during the pandemic is Ellen Bryant-Brown, the owner of the Hope Rising Child Learning Center in Philadelphia. TafarI was able to get a $250,000 working capital loan through Wells Fargo's Open for Business Fund from grantee Access to Capital from Entrepreneurs, and it helped her keep the coffeehouse open. “I started making some products on my own as the supply chain was creating challenges-chocolate sauce, lavender sauce, our own chai,” she said. One way she kept her business afloat was by becoming even more self-sufficient. By trying to find some loans, some grants, or anything. “At the height of the COVID pandemic, I did everything I could, trying to figure out ways that we could sustain ourselves. As the pandemic wore on, Tarfarl felt she ran out of options to keep her business alive, but never stopped coming back to work. When the pandemic hit, the number of people in downtown Atlanta dwindled and the lack of foot traffic significantly hurt the coffeehouse’s finances. Rahel TafarI is the meticulous and hard-working owner of the coffee house who was inspired to open her business by her mother from Ethiopia.
And it doesn’t look like they’re backing down. Nawaf Alsabhan, Saudi Arabia’s general supervisor of cinema classification, told the Guardian that the cuts would amount to “barely 12 seconds” and include America referring to her “two moms,” but noted even that arguably-minute portion of the film would be “very tough to pass” according to the kingdom’s standards. Egypt and Kuwait have already prohibited the movie. The Guardian reported that Saudi Arabia, which regards homosexuality as a capital offense, has asked Disney to cut “LGBTQ references” before screening. In addition to being able to punch holes through the multiverse (nifty power), America is openly gay in the comics and will be represented similarly in the film. Marvel’s follow-up to their 2016 hit starring Benedict Cumberbatch is set to introduce a new character named America Chavez, played by Xochitl Gomez. Strange might find himself in multiple universes, but probably not in Saudi Arabia.