While the 50th annual Nantucket Christmas Stroll was filled with joy and celebration, a power outage downtown that began in the morning on Stroll Saturday (December 7, 2024) had a significant impact on businesses in the area. Approximately 200 Chamber member businesses were in the affected outage grid, and Chamber staff speculates that the actual number of businesses affected may be higher. While a few businesses regained power by 2 pm on December 7, many were forced to close for more than 30 hours. Full power was not restored until Sunday afternoon, December 8. For island restaurants and shops, Stroll Weekend is their final chance to bring in revenue to make it through the quiet winter months.
The Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce has established a dedicated account to receive donations to assist businesses negatively affected by the power outage during Christmas Stroll 2024. This “Lights Out” relief fund is intended to provide financial support in the form of grants for those businesses who apply so they can pay for lost inventory, offset payroll, rent, and other expenses that would have been paid with revenues generated during Stroll had the power outage not forced them to close. This fund is now open to receive donations and will continue to accept monies through the year.
The fund was started with an initial donation by island business people Hanna Poindexter and Dee Fabbricatore, who started collecting dollars in the hours during and just after the outage. They were able to distribute some money directly to affected service industry staff, but they received enough support to surpass what could logistically be handed out in person. Poindexter and Fabbricatore are on the action committee formed to create this fund, and they committed the surplus dollars to be the seed for the fund.
In addition to establishing the Lights Out Fund, the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce is also working with local and state officials to request SBA loans be made available, and they are in conversation with the DPU regarding a review of National Grid’s response to the long outage in hopes that changes will be made to help mitigate any future power issues.
To donate to the Lights Out Fund with a credit card, please click here. Donation checks can be made out to “Economic Injury Relief” and mailed to the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce at 0 Main Street, Nantucket, MA 02554. This fund will be open to receive donations through 2025.
Nantucket Island business owners who suffered economic distress due to losing power during Stroll 2024 and who would like to apply for a grant are asked to fill out this form. The Chamber will not know the value of the available funds until fundraising is complete. At the end of March, they intend to reach out to all applicants and discuss the next steps before issuing funds in April. “We will keep the fund open beyond March,” explained Peter Burke, executive director of the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce, “as we recognize some visitors may not learn about it until the tourism season kicks off. We would hope to make a second distribution later in the season, but that may be dependent upon how much money will be raised.”
Any business people with questions about the form or about logging in, please contact Peter or Jackie at the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce.
Nantucket businesses are also offering to help their community members by hosting fundraising events and initiatives. The Brotherhood of Thieves is donating 5% of sales to the effort every Wednesday during the month of March 2025. Any other business owners who would like to host an event benefitting the Lights Out Stroll 50 relief effort, should contact Jackie at jacqueline@nantucketchamber.org.
Anyone with questions about donating to this fund, may contact the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce at 508-228-1700 or email peter@nantucketchamber.org. Donations made to this fund are not charitable contributions. Awarded funds should be considered taxable income. Please consult your tax professional with any questions.
