BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Last May, a mass murderer targeted the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, killing 10 Black people.

Local Initiative Support Corporation of NY Executive Director Valerie White said, as a result of the tragedy, the historic disinvestment in the neighborhood on the city's east side came to the forefront.

"It's unfortunate that it took this horrible tragedy and this horrible murder of 10 individuals to bring attention to the investment needed in this neighborhood," she said.

New York state is in the process of making $50 million in targeted investments into what the administration has begun calling East Buffalo since the shooting. Among those investments is a $3 million small business grant program which LISC is administering on behalf of Empire State Development.

"We're thinking that this will allow these businesses to sustain to provide a long-term viability, economic development services to the community, provide jobs, provide opportunity to purchase or receive other services, but this will be just the start of a reinvestment in East Buffalo which is really critical to the community there," White said.

The application period opened Friday and will run through next Friday, Feb. 17. LISC is partnering with two other local organizations, the Exchange at Beverly Gray and the Foundry to provide technical assistance.

"The businesses have to be small, less than 100 employees with annual revenues between $5 and $1 million and the grants will be from $5,000 to $50,000 each," she said.

White recognized the community around Tops will need time to heal emotionally and economically. Even as the store has been renovated and reopened, some residents are still tentative to shop there.

"By having a support of other small businesses, rebuilding that community, building up economic commercial quarters that provide a variety of goods and services, it will start to bring some normalcy back to the neighborhood and maybe, maybe not those individuals will feel comfortable going back into Tops but they will also have access to similar goods and services among those same corridors," she said.