Business

Kevin Henry used an adverse situation to his advantage, creating two popular community businesses To describe Kevin Henry as a city official is just a small part of his story. Henry has been working as a superintendent for buildings and grounds for four years, supervising a total of 70 employees. He is also an entrepreneur. And he’s a mentor, each …

Count It All Joy was able to grow from an at-home business into a full-fledged brand Over the past year, Joyce Boahene, the founder of Count It All Joy, Inspirational Products, LLC, has embraced social media in every way. “I do a Twitter every day. My blog I update on a weekly or monthly basis, usually with an inspirational message,” …

Construction on new grocery store scheduled for this summer The dream of a full-service grocery store on Syracuse’s South Side will take a very big step toward becoming a reality, as construction workers plan to break ground on the nearly $3.5 million project by June. All that remains for the project’s planners is to locate and sign a tenant for …

Charles Garland found his calling as the manager of the family-run funeral home Charles Garland always wanted to be a doctor. He dreamt of the days he could perform surgeries and save lives. But when Garland was a child, his future profession was already planned out for him. Instead of going to summer camp like the average child his age, …

Ma’Dear’s salon aims to teach customers how to maintain their total image, starting with hair A blue flash blazes into the salon. A short woman with slight wrinkles wearing white bedroom slippers and blue sweatshirt power walks into Ma’Dear’s Total Image Body Salon and Day Spa. Her shoulder-length, gold-highlighted, black hair flies behind her, a small piece of it tied …

Tuesday, Nov. 30, Syracuse Housing Authority hosted its first Section 3 Networking Reception. The event was held at the South Side Innovation Center in Syracuse. The main goal of the evening was to bring various minority contractors together in order to create familiarity and exchange business specialties. In this sharing, it is hoped that minority contractors will begin to acquire …

In tough economic times, his restaurant manages to survive Growing up in Kingston, Jamaica, Irvin “Bongo” Hanslip learned the value of hard work from his parents. “My parents were only rich in culture, poor in finance,” said Hanslip, 63, whose parents were both farmers. “By seeing how they provided for us, so we could have a better education, it give …

Minority contractors in Syracuse, mostly on the South Side, are banding together to improve access to training and certification programs and to demand more work on private and government contracts. But they face an array of stiff challenges, including shortcomings in expertise, funding and networking.

Treona Mclean, 18, has to make sacrifices. About two times a month, Mclean rides the bus from her home on Hudson Street to the Western Lights shopping center to buy groceries.

New SKY PAD Studios helps local recording artists make it big With the help of a local recording label, local R&B artist Erika Lovette is in the process of creating her second R&B album — one that will include songs by the same person who performed a song with R&B artist Anita Baker. SKY PAD Studios, a new recording label …