CORAL CAP

A Southwest Florida businessman who received a Small Business Paycheck Protection Program loan returns the money, and he said it was because of a “neighbor” that he had met while watching WINK News.

WINK News recently made a fuss where Christine Bowen, a recently unemployed single mom, said she had to beg her boss for frozen burgers just to feed her kids. His misfortunes did not end there.

“We don’t have a washer and dryer and I don’t have the money to go to a laundromat,” she said.

“He’s an employee. What about my other 26 employees? Said Vollen Loucks, owner of the Duval Street restaurant where Bowen worked.

Bowen and Loucks were unaware that a bystander who saw the story was Storm Smart CEO Brian Rist, who lives a few miles from Cape Coral.

“The idea that a bag of frozen burgers could make the difference between having dinner and not having dinner,” said Rist.

Bowen’s story helped him decide to pay off a $ 2.7 million small business loan he got from the federal government.

“I just didn’t see how we could take this money and use it for our people when there were so many businesses and people who were much worse than us,” he said.

Now Rist asks everyone to be careful of their neighbors, even if you don’t know them.

Help – if you can, as you can.

“Sometimes everyone needs a little help, and this lady, she’s just an example of all these women out there, and men too,” Rist said.