Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park now features a dedicated section in its gift shop selling fresh bouquets from Mwah Flowers, a Brooklyn-based business that recently graduated from a local small business accelerator program.
The partnership was made possible through the Brooklyn Communities Collaborative (BCC), a nonprofit focused on reducing health inequities in Brooklyn. Mwah Flowers, founded by Stephen Copeland, was one of nine small businesses in BCC’s first Small Business Accelerator Program, which helps local entrepreneurs develop the skills to secure contracts with major institutions like hospitals and city agencies.
“I myself and even others in the classroom had no experience learning how to create a business proposal, how to submit a bid, things we just had no clue how to do,” said Copeland, who has operated his flower shop on Broadway Avenue border of Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, since 2016.
From September 2024 to January 2025, the cohort participated in weekly sessions, workshops, and personalized coaching, learning how to navigate procurement systems and build capacity to serve large-scale clients.
“The biggest thing for me was being able to speak with and have access to larger outfits with the city and state,” said Copeland, who officially launched his hospital location on May 8.
The program not only helped participants win new opportunities, it also created a sense of connection among business owners.
“You bring a lot of small, hungry businesses together and then we all realize, wait a minute, this is on purpose, we can actually do this?” said Cliff Exil of JetEx Mechanical, LLC, reflecting on the collaboration and motivation sparked by the program.
That spirit of partnership has continued beyond the accelerator. Shari Suchoff, Executive Director of BCC, noted that several cohort members are now working together.
“One of the childcare providers in the cohort is building an outdoor space and she’s going to try to contract with a construction firm that’s part of the cohort,” Suchoff said. “So there’s a lot of collaboration.”
Although BCC hasn’t announced a date for its next accelerator cohort, it is actively fundraising. The current round was supported by a $360,000 grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, in partnership with Hunter College.
The program was informed by participatory action research, which identified systemic barriers—including displacement risk, racial and gender biases, and complex bidding processes—that prevent minority-owned businesses from securing local procurement contracts.
The findings were published in BCC’s 2023 procurement analysis.
