Paycheck Protection Program Loan—Forgiven!

You may have heard of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—loans backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) that helped businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis. Planned Parenthood of Central and Western New York (PPCWNY) applied for and received a $2.6M fully forgivable loan back in March of 2020. This loan helped offset eight weeks of payroll costs and enabled us to make it through the pandemic with minimal furloughs and no layoffs, allowing us to continue to provide essential health care throughout the height of lockdown in NYS. In May of 2020, we received a letter from the SBA explaining that organizations with greater than 500 employees were ineligible for PPP distributions. It incorrectly claimed that PPCWNY and Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) are the same organization, and therefore, PPCWNY did not qualify for the loan. We are our own independent organization that is not controlled by PPFA. For over a year, PPCWNY has been working with our lawyers to have this PPP loan forgiven. As of August 2021, this loan was fully forgiven! This is excellent news for PPCWNY and all the people we serve in our community.