RALEIGH -- The North Carolina Rural Center recently launched the North Carolina Small Business Recovery Fund, an initiative to provide low-interest loans of up to $250,000 for terms of up to 10 years. These loans are available to businesses in disaster-impacted areas of the state, like those impacted by Hurricane Matthew.

It's estimated that it will cost our state $1 billion to recover from the storm, and while HUD's announcement this week will help homeowners, this grant focuses on business owners.  

To date, NCRC says the fund has approved eight loans, committing more than $825,000 to small businesses located in seven North Carolina counties: Cumberland, Dare, Johnston, Columbus, Carteret, Wilson and Wayne.  

They organization also launched another program this week to help with recovery in seven of the hardest hit towns in North Carolina which are still trying to recover, called the Small Business Recovery Program.