Photo by Tim Mossholder for Unsplash.
By Cindy Canas, Staff Reporter
As the pandemic extends towards the end of the year, college students have become more creative in different ways to flourish in difficult times.
The common nine to five or part-time jobs that many college students seek for financial stability suddenly hit a tough end as the number of COVID-19 cases increased.
Many individuals in the United States faced financial difficulties since the closing and limiting of essential workers in a particular job.
College students were faced with extreme difficulties and challenges such as still paying for tuition, rent, insurance, and other expenses.
As most of their jobs were part-time jobs at restaurants, retail shops, and other nonessential jobs that now had their doors forced shut.
Although the majority of the common jobs such as server, cashier, and sales associates were now closed, it created an environment where more opportunities for new development and growth of another business.
Small businesses gained leverage in becoming more visible to a greater audience online through the use of social media and increased the amount of revenue from new customers.
Small business owners like Vanessa Correa, a graduate from the University of Southern California, School of Social Work in 2016, is head of LoveAndMasks where she creates and sells handmade masks.
LoveAndMasks is a small business that crafts and creates designs inspired by Correa’s mother by sewing onto masks for people to wear during the pandemic.
“With such an intense and scary pandemic, we wanted to make wearing masks fun and demonstrate my mom’s work,” Correa said.
The pandemic hasn’t slowed down Correa’s new business; instead, it has actually made her more popular on multiple social media platforms.
With 651 followers on Instagram, the number of high order demands helps small businesses flourish in the darkest of times for many others.
For the most part, small businesses gradually gain popularity and followers at a slower rate than most corporate businesses. However, with the slow growth of small businesses, they are able to form a loyal bond with their customers and become successful with the support given to them by their returning customers.
There is a variety of small businesses focusing on a range of new and similar products and unique services. Some of the topics and products that small businesses focus on are treats, masks, artwork, detailing, and many other more arts and crafts based work.
Jazmin Rangel, a student at California State University, Dominguez Hills majoring in Art History and Studio Art, is the owner of Jcr8r, a small business focusing primarily in the arts.
Artist Rangel planned, designed, and developed a coloring book during the beginning stages of the pandemic. The development of the coloring book was one of her first big projects for her small business that has successfully thrived with her audience online.
“To give people the ability to play with color, especially in very dark times,” Rangel said was the reason why she crafted the coloring book.
The mentality of small businesses compared to corporate businesses are vastly different which gives small businesses more of an advantage to grow a loyal following, even during a pandemic.
Rangel understands the hardships that many of her loyal followers online are mentally and financially going through so she sought out a way to give back reasonably to her audience.
The intentions of small business owners range from a new creative outlet to being financially stable enough to pay for college tuition, supporting family, and so on.
Although Correa’s and Rangel’s small businesses are completely different from one another, they are both passionate and grateful for the results of their business within the last few months.
Small business online and online shopping is becoming the new form of shopping for more people as indoor malls are closed and many corporate shops are taking more precautions during the pandemic.
If you are interested in supporting the small businesses mentioned, their information can be found here, for unique mask designs follow LoveAndMasks on Instagram and Facebook for a coloring book and artwork follow Jcr8r on Instagram.
