She Lives to Help Small Businesses Survive By Carl Glassman Nothing makes Rosalie Tanaka happier than giving away money. If only she could find more takers. Tanaka is an assistant vice president of the city’s Economic Development Corp. (EDC). She was doing routine business recruitment before Sept. 11, networking, attending trade shows and otherwise trying to bring companies to the city. Then came the disaster, and her workday took on new meaning. "That was a job," she says. "This is a mission."   Tanaka, a former television producer, oversees the processing of grant applications at the city’s WTC Business Rebuilding Center at 140 William St., one of two walk-in centers Downtown. The large, high-ceiling room where she and others meet clients is a strangely quiet, empty-looking, considering they are there to help put free money in the pockets of some 20,000 eligible business owners below 14th Street. According to the EDC, two-thirds of those firms have yet to apply for the federally funded grants available since February to help Downtown businesses and attract new ones to the area. The Empire State Development Corp. and the EDC, which administer the programs, have taken heat from critics who say the grants to small businesses are too little and too late. So city and state officials are trying hard to get the word out that many businesses have yet to apply. "We’re frustrated," EDC President Andrew Alper said last month at a press briefing. "We have $1.4 billion in federal money and we want to give it out. We have no reason not to want to give it out." With evangelical fervor, Tanaka is trying to do just that. Every client gets her cell phone number and by 8:30 a.m. she is fielding calls from home. Potential applicants whom she hasn’t heard from in a while get a call to find out how they’re doing. "If I can make it easy for them, they’ll go and tell their friends and neighbors," she says. With recovery grants based, in part, on a percentage of reported income, the payoff can be tiny for low earners. But Tanaka shrugs off suggestions that for some, applying isn’t worth the effort. She recalls her neighbor, a self-employed actor, whom she persuaded to apply. He got less than $30. "But it acknowledged him as having paid his taxes and being a business in New York," says the always-upbeat Tanaka. "I told him, ‘Go spend it in the neighborhood. It’s good for the economy.’" Tanaka and a few co-workers had no grants and paltry information to disburse to desperate business owners when they opened the EDC’s office on Maiden Lane in September. Robert Garber, a caterer and restaurateur, admits to visiting Tanaka "about ten times" for his Bits and Bites on Park Place, located in the frozen zone for two months. "In the beginning, no one knew anything," Garber recalls, "but she made some calls and came back and said, ‘You’re on Ground Zero and you’re out of there for months. Do what you need to do.’" As a result, Garber held onto catering clients by renting a kitchen uptown. Later, Tanaka directed him to grant programs that were critical for his rebound. He is now set to open five more businesses Downtown. "She is the most enthusiastic person I ever met in my life," Garber says. "She keeps me going." For information on grant programs and other help for small businesses call (866) 227-0458 or (800) 456-8369.