Forty small businesses across Nassau and Suffolk counties are opening their mailboxes this summer to find real money, not a loan offer or a grant application form, but a $5,000 check already earned. The Long Island Association and Optimum Business handed out the funds at a ceremony in Bethpage on June 16, part of the third annual L.O.C.A.L. Small Business Grant Program.

Twenty of the winners are based in Nassau County and twenty in Suffolk, an even split that reflects the program's mission of spreading support across the whole Island rather than favoring one region. Two of the 40 recipients cleared the bar for something bigger: they're now eligible for up to $20,000 in additional funding before the year is out.

The list of winners reads like a snapshot of what actually keeps Long Island's Main Streets running. West Door Yoga + Wellness and Sweet Arts of Northport are on it, alongside Snacks & Design and Special Treasures Childcare. So is Burger Boys Bar and Grill, which plans to put its grant toward an outdoor patio expansion, giving customers more room to eat and giving the business more room to grow.

Not every recipient sells a product or serves a meal. Save the Great South Bay, an environmental nonprofit, made the list too, and it's directing its $5,000 toward oyster cleanup supplies, tools that support the bay's water quality and the shellfish population that depends on it. Special Treasures Childcare, meanwhile, represents the kind of everyday infrastructure that families rely on but rarely gets celebrated with a check-passing ceremony.

That range, wellness studios and childcare centers, bakeries and bar owners, a design shop and a bay cleanup nonprofit, is by design. The L.O.C.A.L. program was built to reach small operators in a wide swath of industries, not just the ones with the loudest storefronts.

This year's round pushes the program's total impact past the three-year mark in a big way. Since L.O.C.A.L. launched in 2024, it has now awarded a cumulative $700,000 to 130 small businesses spread across Nassau and Suffolk. That's 130 owners who got a direct infusion of cash with no repayment attached, at a moment when small margins and rising costs make every dollar count.

"These 40 small businesses represent the entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, and resilience that have long helped Long Island's communities grow and thrive," said LIA CEO Stacey Sikes at the Bethpage ceremony.

LIA Board Chair Lawrence Waldman also addressed the crowd, speaking to the broader goal behind the grants: supporting small business growth and, in turn, the job creation that comes with it. For an organization built around the region's economic health, the two go hand in hand. A thriving small business doesn't just survive, it hires.

There's a fitting bit of timing behind this year's ceremony. The Long Island Association is marking its 100th anniversary in 2026, a full century since it first organized to advocate for the region's economy. A hundred years later, that same institution is still doing the work in a very direct way, standing in a room in Bethpage and handing local business owners checks they can put toward a patio, a childcare classroom, or a bucket of oyster cages.

For the 40 businesses that walked away with grants this June, the money is already being put to use. For the LIA, it's a reminder that a century-old organization can still show up for the smallest players on Long Island, one $5,000 check at a time.