As the community of North Liberty grows every year, the open office spaces of the town continue to fill.

Not just with new businesses, but new opportunities for their owners. Owners like Doctor Byron Ezeugo Nwonye, who is operating his chiropractic business, Royal Family Chiropractic, with a little help from the city of North Liberty and Greater Iowa City, Inc.

Mr. Nwonye — or “Dr. EZ”, as his patients know him — said he knew that buying the space for his business to live and grow was not going to be easy.

“With the finances I had saved up, I knew it was just going to be kind of difficult at the time to move forward with the ideas and renovations that I had in mind,” he said in a blog post from Greater Iowa City.

But the North Liberty Targeted Economic Development Grant Program had exactly what Mr. Nwonye needed.

This financial assistance program, a joint project run by Greater Iowa City Inc. and the city of North Liberty, offers small businesses like Royal Family Chiropractic up to $10,000, promising a total 10 businesses selected for the grant and $85,000 supplied to all grantees.

In addition, the Business Resource Center at MERGE in the heart of downtown Iowa City offers financial assistance to grantees.

Royal Family Chiropractic is one of the businesses benefiting the program thus far, another being Gani Barbershop, owned and operated by Sihyung Lee.

Mr. Lee found himself in the same shoes as Mr. Nwonye.

“I’m 23 years old and don’t have all the cash in the world,” Mr. Lee said. “The grant program helped me redo my floors. Before these floors were done there were huge cracks in the concrete. It also allowed me to get two new signs.”

Both Royal Family Chiropractic and Gani Barbershop have since opened their doors to the North Liberty community and more small businesses are sure to be selected and announced by Greater Iowa City and the city of North Liberty.

“By providing this generous grant,” said Mr. Nwonye. “It just shows that North Liberty really cares about all businesses big or small, but especially those small businesses that are looking for that little extra push.”