Hundreds of billions of dollars has been given to small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program or PPP loan.
It’s helped many here in Ohio stay afloat and helped some get back to work.
One man has felt the hardships of this pandemic firsthand.
Ildefanso Bravo works at Dos Hermanos, a Mexican restaurant in central Ohio.
If you ask him now, he’d tell you his job is one of the most important things to him.
“I lost my job…they cut my hours. I felt really bad for myself, for my family and for others. We had a lot of good workers,” said Bravo.
When everything shut down last year, Bravo was one of five workers that was let go.
He told 10TV he was out of a job for several months.
“I have two kids. You’re waiting for the paycheck every week because you need to pay rent, you need to pay for food,” said Bravo.
To let Bravo and others go was a decision Lisa Gutierrez, owner of Dos Hermanos had to make.
She said it was one of the hardest things she had to do, but she knew she was going to bring them back.
Gutierrez applied for the first round of the PPP loan. She said she fell short of getting funded the first time but didn’t throw in the towel.
Once she got approved for the second loan, she used 80% of it to bring back her employees, including Bravo.
“It’s a much easier, better phone call to tell people it’s time to come back. Without it, I don’t even know if we would’ve survived,” she said.
Bravo said he learned a valuable lesson while he was laid off: " For a lot of the time it was... I have to go to work. But when you lose a job, and then you start working again, you’re just thankful,” he said.