The Miller Business MIRA team envision the establishment of small businesses and home-based businesses in Southern Perry County that would provide a living wage to citizens who would otherwise need to leave the area to find employment. The team wantde to provide the citizens of Southern Perry County the opportunity to obtain help in starting their own business. They determined the best way to accomplish these goals was to develop a business incubation center to support entrepreneurs and their "start up" ideas. The team wanted their incubation center to offer assistance in market research, business plan development, bookkeeping skills and financial resource identification.

The Miller team named their new organization SPICE (Southern Perry Incubation Center for Entreprenuers) and got to work. First the team located and upgraded a building space to serve as a business educational resource and support center. The center houses a main office, a computer lab, class space, and rental areas for incubator businesses. Next, the team began to assist prospective entrepreneurs by conducting workshops and bringing in consultants from established business development resource centers to take participants through the "how-to-start-your-own-business" process. SPICE then created a web site, which they hope to update with a database providing information on the demographic and historic backgrounds of the communities and lists of available area business sites.

The team itends for the SPICE program to become self-sustainable through the funding provided by the rental of "incubator" space in the center, copying fees, fax transmission income, resume creation services, accounting services, business supplies sales and the procurement of additional grants.

This team worked closely with an Ohio CSO, ACEnet.