The Lightning Jar welcomes first director | The Bennington Banner | Bennington Breaking News, Sports, Weather, Traffic

Michelle Marrocco, Lightning Jar director

BENNINGTON Bennington’s own business incubator and collaborative coworking space, the Lightning Jar, has hired its first full-time director.

Michelle Marrocco, a northeast Massachusetts native, started July 2 and already has ambitious plans for the future of Lightning Jar, which seeks to empower and support entrepreneurs throughout their business journey.

The Lightning Jar was born three years ago in October 2015 as a collaboration between business, nonprofit, community and government leaders locally and around the region.

Nonprofit banking alternative VSECU is a major sponsor of The Lightning Jar; the two collaborate to host the coworking space within the Bennington branch of VSECU located on North Street.

At the beginning of this fiscal year July 1, the community foundation awarded The Lightning Jar a $25,000 grant to go toward hiring staff.

“Everything we’ve done at this point is because of really incredible partnerships,” Marrocco said. Earlier this year, she began working with the Lightning Jar doing community and economic development projects. Lightning Jar has grant funding through the end of the year and seed funding to power it through the next three years, but Marrocco says it’s important to keep thinking of what needs to be done to stay open and be successful.

She sees The Lightning Jar as a guide through the “entrepreneurial pipeline,” helping people navigate the business process and figure out who to turn to for success.