Pine, Franklin Park businesses among those receiving $10K Comcast 'RISE' grants

Dr. Megan Stock was inspired at a young age to become a dentist by her own childhood dentist, the mother of a friend.

While dentistry was once a male-dominated field, Stock said her dental school graduating class at the University of Pittsburgh was nearly half female, a ratio she believes has been increasing in recent years.

Stock bought her practice in Pine seven years ago from a man who retired after 30 years.

“You still run across some older generations that maybe raise an eyebrow. I haven’t let that hold me back,” she said. “You sometimes still hear the term ‘woman dentist.’ I’m looking forward to the day it’s just ‘dentist.’”

Stock’s dental practice was among 100 small businesses owned by women and minorities in Allegheny County each receiving a $10,000 grant, a total of $1 million, from Comcast through its “Comcast RISE” program.

In addition to Stock, recipients in Pine are Helios Solutions Group and A Mother’s Boutique. A fourth recipient, Bottom Line Financial Services, is in neighboring Franklin Park.

Comcast launched RISE — Representation, Investment, Strength and Empowerment — in 2020 to help small business owners of color who were hardest hit by the economic impacts of the covid pandemic. In November, Comcast expanded eligibility to women-owned businesses.

Comcast RISE has awarded more than $16 million in grants and $75 million in in-kind support for marketing and technology services to more than 9,500 entrepreneurs in 704 cities across 37 states, the company said. By the end of 2022, 13,000 businesses are expected to benefit through the grant program or resources provided through Effectv, the advertising division of Comcast Cable, and Comcast Business.

Jennifer Foody left her 20-year career in corporate finance to start her own solo accounting services business, Bottom Line Financial Services, nine years ago.

“I wanted to have the flexibility to be a mom first and still earn a good wage. It was great until covid hit,” she said. “The last couple of years have been a real struggle. I lost more than half of my business within two weeks of the pandemic starting. That was a big hit for me.”

Foody said it’s been getting better, but business has not returned to pre-pandemic levels. She had to take a second job, which “isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

Foody said she’ll focus her grant on marketing her business.

“The traditional things worked well for me initially. That was a lot of in-person networking, meetings, that type of thing. That’s all changed with covid. A lot of stuff is online now,” she said. “I’m not good at marketing. That’s the piece I really need some help with.”

Danielle Verba, owner of Helios Solutions Group, is also interested in the marketing services available through the program. She wants to use her $10,000 grant toward marketing, redoing her website, business cards and branding.

Verba, of Pine, started Helios in 2015. A custom software development group, it builds web and mobile applications.

“If there’s one thing I’m not fantastically excited about, it’s marketing,” she said. “I’m very excited about getting the support in regards to marketing and being able to promote my business better.”

In software engineering, whether it’s male-dominated field or more evenly split depends on the role, Verba said. While management roles tend to be more even, she said engineering roles are still mostly filled by men, with few women seeking them.

“It is certainly difficult finding women engineers. Studies show women tend to shy away from those kind of opportunities,” she said. “There’s been a lot of effort put into getting especially younger girls interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) based opportunities.”

Stock, who resides in McCandless, said she was nervous about how patients would receive her when she took over her dental practice, which was closed for two months because of the pandemic.

“It was a blessing from God that they gave me the chance and allowed me to succeed. They’ve supported me,” she said. “Through the care that I’ve given them, I’ve comforted any fears they had about changing a dentist in general from an older gentleman to a younger female.”

Stock said she plans to use her grant to buy equipment to keep her patients comfortable, and to get a patient management system so she can get rid of paper charts and go fully electronic.

“It all goes back to providing patients with the absolute best care in a comfortable setting,” she said.