Tara: A Small Business Owner Who Lost Her Husband to COVID-19

March 15 was supposed to be a big day for Tara. She was scheduled to sign a lease on a creativity center that would allow her to expand her business. 

After a 20-year career managing employee benefit plans, Tara decided to attend business school. It was there that she discovered Bricks 4 Kidz, a program that provides after school STEM enrichment programs. Or, in Tara’s words, “edutainment.” When she graduated in 2013, she bought the franchise in Essex County, New Jersey. 

“We do enrichment programs for children ages 3-13 where the primary medium is lego bricks,” Tara said.  “We teach them how to build models and reinforce the STEM concepts through the building. We also teach robotics, coding, and stop-motion animation.”

For seven years, Tara had operated her franchise as a mobile business. She planned to open a brick and mortar location in the spring of 2020. But when New Jersey shut down in response to COVID-19, Tara’s dreams were put on hold.

“All the business we had at the time was with a school or preschool,” Tara explained. “So the contracts we had signed for the spring came to an abrupt halt.”

The national team at Bricks 4 Kidz provided a curriculum for virtual classes to keep the business running. But Tara had bigger concerns.

“My husband, who worked at Newark Airport, was sent home and told he had been exposed,” Tara said. “He was supposed to quarantine for two weeks, but by Monday he was in the emergency room, unable to breathe. He lost his battle.”

Tara’s husband passed away on April 18. On top of her grief over losing her spouse, Tara also had to deal with the logistical problems that came from losing the medical insurance and financial stability that came with his job--and which she relied on.

“He was the safety net for my business,” Tara said. “When I didn’t have enough to pay myself and the employees, of course the employees got paid. Not having that safety net anymore means my business expenses increase because now I really have to pay myself from the business.”

Luckily, Tara lived in her mother’s house and her mother was able to cover the mortgage for a few months. Tara used a PPP loan to pay her nine part-time employees for the month of May. In June, she trained her employees how to teach their classes online, and Bricks 4 Kidz re-opened for business. The school district and city of Newark hired them to provide classes for online summer camps, but with the end of summer looming, Tara is having to pivot her business model yet again.

“We’re still waiting for the final information from the school district,” Tara said. “Newark has announced they’re going to do a hybrid [school], but we don’t know what the hybrid is gonna look like. What does that mean for after school [programs]? We don’t know.”

On top of re-building her business, Tara is also dealing with the financial and physical fallout from contracting COVID-19 herself. She used her $500 grant from Prudential and SaverLife to help pay her medical bills.

“By the time I was able to get my test results, the insurance from [my husband’s] job was already cancelled,” Tara said. “It presented for me as a sinus infection. I didn’t have any of the typical symptoms that would have allowed me to get tested sooner.”

And because her husband was not a first responder, Tara is ineligible to receive survivor benefits or a survivor pension. In the midst of navigating unimaginable grief, she has also had to deal with bills, creditors, and the financial fallout of the pandemic. While she remains hopeful and committed to the success of her business, she can’t help but notice how many people like her have slipped through the cracks of pandemic relief plans.

“If you are low on the totem pole,” she said, “you have five times more problems than anyone would have ever thought about.”

Right now, she is focusing on providing classes online, and exploring the potential of providing small, private classes in family backyards. And although she wasn’t able to sign that lease in March, she’s still in talks with the owner about leasing the space to use for pod-based classes.

“There’s still a need,” Tara said. “Many of the children [we work with] are children of parents who are essential workers. That population still needs something for their children to do while at work.”