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Home My WebLink About110420 HENNIG, WENDY Marie Sunseri From:Wendy Hennig - Barre3 Danville <wendy.hennig@barre3.com> Sent:Tuesday, November 3, 2020 4:40 PM To:Marie Sunseri Subject:Danville Grant Program for COVID-19 Business Recovery ***CAUTION*** This email originated from outside of the Town of Danville. Do not click on links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. To the Danville Town Council, My name is Wendy Hennig, I am the owner of barre3 Danville - I purchased the existing business in March 2018 after spending a few years as an Instructor and the Studio Manager. I am a Danville native - went to Green Valley, Los Cerros and Monte Vista and reside in Danville with my family, two kids ages 6 & 9 who attend Vista Grande (virtually at this time). COVID-19 has had a drastic impact on my business on many levels and I am so grateful for the opportunity to possibly apply for a grant through the town. I temporarily closed the studio on Sunday, March 15th, right away I lost revenue as many members cancelled immediately. After a week into the pandemic I quickly pivoted to a virtual option of class offerings, something I had no experience with prior. I (my entire instructor team) offered livestream classes to clients via Zoom daily (still do), but this set up required audio/visual equipment to be purchased for all instructors (airpods, increased internet speed for their houses, equipment to teach class, etc). All livestream classes are recorded and available OnDemand to clients/members - something that we will continue to offer moving forward. The novelty of anything zoom based wore off and in June my numbers were continuing to drop - yet I still had (have) all the same financial obligations: rent, insurance, payroll, etc. With the weather changing I came up with a spot to offer daily outdoor classes, which we still do daily and will continue as long as weather permits. But again, this came with a cost as we needed the correct audio/visual set up to pull this off. When our county moved to the red tier I had to open up my studio, as I needed members to come back - I needed class package clients to return and start using their classes, I need revenue to continue to come in. I am operating at a drastically reduced class capacity, masks required at all times and reduced scheduling too - as not all clients are comfortable coming into studio, yet expenses continue to add up - had to purchase new audio/visual equipment to run livestream classes from in-studio in an effort to cut payroll, our cleaning/disinfectant procedures are expensive and time consuming and exceed CDC standards. The feeling of treading water for the last 8 months has been incredibly stressful, I've never worked so hard in my life - but through it all I remind myself of my why, why I do what I do is because my love for this community runs deep. I am so grateful to give my client community the opportunity to stay connected and stay moving - as there truly is joy in collective movement. I've heard time and time again from clients that keeping up with their barre3 classes during this pandemic has helped them SO much - not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. The health and well being of our community is my number one priority, and am committed to continuing to adapt my business to meet the community where they feel most comfortable - at home via livestream/OnDemand, outdoors and/or in-studio. Any grant from the town would be of incredible help - maybe it's a tent to move outdoors so that I can continue classes through the rain, maybe it's so that my signage at the studio can be improved so that the community sees the studio/the brand, maybe it's for marketing to extend my reach...ANYTHING will help! 1 Thank you for considering barre3 Danville for the grant program - I look forward to hearing what the next steps are and am hopeful that my business will qualify for some relief. With Gratitude, Wendy To help protect your privacy, Microsoft Office prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet. Wendy Hennig Studio Owner - Danville, CA 925.362.4836 http://bit.ly/barre3-danville To help prot ect your priva cy, W 2