50 Businesses, 50 Solutions — Granite State News Collaborative

Keene Arts Center Sells Streamed Performances

Keene Arts Center Sells Streamed Performances

With social distancing, only about eight audience members would be allowed into MoCo’s black box theater. Even if they utilized theater space at nearby Keene State University, the crowd would be much smaller.

Instead of returning to live performances, Messer borrowed an idea from professional dance and theater troupes, which began releasing videos of old productions during the pandemic as a way to keep some revenue coming in. MoCo would film productions, making them available for streaming or download to family members and anyone else who was interested.

Army Recruiting Embraces Social Media

Army Recruiting Embraces Social Media

Before the pandemic hit, Sargent Denium Reynolds, an Army recruiter based in Keene, spent a lot of time on the road. The Keene recruiting office is one of six Army recruiting offices in New Hampshire. Reynolds and the five other service members in the office are responsible for recruiting in southwestern New Hampshire, all the way up to the Upper Valley. To do that, they used to go out into the community, visiting high schools and colleges to talk to people who may be interested in an Army career.

Yoga Therapist Faces Educational, Marketing Challenges

Yoga Therapist Faces Educational, Marketing Challenges

Shae Sterrett saw the stress and anxiety brought on in the early days of the pandemic, and she thought she could help. Sterrett had been working for herself for four years in sales and marketing, but she was interested in launching a business focused exclusively on yoga therapy and wellness. The pandemic, Sterrett believed, showed just how critical the need was for services like the ones she could offer.

“In the midst of COVID, there’s this mental health crisis going on,” she said.

Portsmouth Physical Therapist Hires Additional Staff During COVID

Portsmouth Physical Therapist Hires Additional Staff During COVID

At the beginning of 2020, Sport & Spine Physical Therapy, Inc. had moved into a new space. It was bigger than their old location and, importantly, didn’t have any shared entrances or waiting rooms. With a medical background and the new, safer space on his side, Campbell was confident that he could keep treating patients safely. Still, patients were wary about coming in for treatment that they saw as non-essential.

Campbell knew that he had to make people comfortable coming in the door, not only for the sake of his business, but in order to keep his patients healthy. He extended patient appointments from 30 minutes to 40, in order to have fewer people in the clinic at a time and to allow for cleaning between appointments. Both practitioners and patients have appreciated the longer time slots, Campbell said.

ConvenientMD Responds To COVID, While Looking Ahead

ConvenientMD Responds To COVID, While Looking Ahead

At the beginning of 2020, ConvenientMD was looking toward expansion. The Portsmouth-based company had plans to open multiple new locations, and continue to offer more intensive services that are usually reserved for hospitals, like infusions for patients with long-term conditions like multiple sclerosis or arthritis. The company was also preparing to launch a telehealth platform, but more for balancing loads between locations than for delivering care to patients directly.

However, the leadership of the company, including Co-founder and Executive Chairman Gareth Dickens, was also monitoring the coronavirus emerging in China. Before the virus was declared a pandemic, Dickens and his team could see what was coming, and began stocking up on personal protective equipment. Soon, a conference room at the company’s Portsmouth headquarters was transformed into a PPE holding space.