Wilbur’s of Maine Chocolate Confections has big plans for $100,000 JPMorgan Chase Bank grant.

Wilbur’s of Maine Chocolate Confections in Freeport has cooked up a strategy to secure grants that its owners hope will not only benefit the company, but also the community as a whole.

Last week, JPMorgan Chase Bank announced that Wilbur’s is one of 20 small businesses in the country – out of a pool of more than 30,000 applicants – to be awarded $100,000 Mission Main Street Grant. Owners Tom and Catherine Wilbur plan on using the money to build a demonstration kitchen and a candy-cooking school on the premises, sometime next spring. Tom Wilbur credited his wife, son Andy and family friend Sandi Lemmerman for writing the grant.

JPMorgan Chase Bank makes Mission Main Street Grants available to small businesses “to execute a business plan that will result in expansion and growth of the small business, including, for example, a new location, equipment, and product or distribution channel,” according to its website.

It’s the second grant the company has secured in the past year.

Last winter, Wilbur’s of Maine won a federal grant to pay 25 percent of the cost of installing solar panels, which was accomplished in January outside the business at 174 Lower Main St. At the time, Tom Wilbur noted that solar power serves the common good. He looks at his company’s expansion plans in a similar vein.

“We want to make Wilbur’s of Maine and Freeport a destination,” Wilbur said. “Our idea was to have a demonstration kitchen and to have a place where people could come in and watch a video. Things that they could go home and make.”

Wilbur’s applied for the Mission Main Street Grant in July.

“You had to get 250 people to vote for you,” Wilbur said. “All they were really saying was that you were a viable business and were reputable – that sort of thing.”

Voting took place on the Chase bank website, Wilbur said.

He said for the demonstration kitchen, people could come in off the street, at no charge, to take part. The candy-making school would offer people, for a fee, to spend a day or more making candy, which would enable them to make it at home.

Wilbur’s, which began in 1983, makes and sells its candy at the Freeport location. The company also has retail stores on Bow Street in Freeport and on Main Street in Brunswick.

Wilbur pointed to a monitor on a wall of the Lower Main Street retail shop, where Chase produced a 2 1?2-minute video about his business – a video that plays continuously for customers. The video shows the reaction he and his wife showed at the announcement of the Chase grant.

“I was very shocked at this grant,” he said. “Thirty thousand applicants and they selected 20. The video starts with me kissing Catherine and ends with Catherine kissing me. It also shows our granddaughters shopping, and Andy, who will be taking over the business, making candy.”

Erich Timmerman, who does media relations for Chase, said that a panel of judges from across the business spectrum choose the Mission Main Street Grant winners. They do so based on the answers provided and some follow-up research by Chase, he said.

“You’ve got to have a great business model, be responsible in the community and be passionate about the business,” Timmerman said.

Wilbur reflected those values when he spoke of his company’s place in the community.

“Our conscious priorities here are our customers and we feel we just have them to thank for our success and our team members have been wonderful,” he said. “And we have a responsibility to give back to the community.”

The Wilburs are happy working at their family-owned business, Wilbur’s of Maine Chocolate Confections at 174 Lower Main St. in Freeport. From left are Andy Wilbur and his parents, Catherine and Tom Wilbur.Courtesy photo