HUDSON, Fla. -- Members of "The Hub" gathered in Blackjack Media Group's parking lot along State Rd. 52 on Friday to celebrate the group's latest collaborative effort: two Pasco County buses covered in ads from two dozen businesses.

"I'm so excited to see my picture on a bus," said Danielle Snitker.

Snitker owns Another Girl Fights the Dust, a cleaning service that was just getting started when the pandemic hit.

"There's been struggles, for sure," said Snitker. "We've really had to kind of change the way we do business to make sure that not only are we protecting our employees, but also our clients because we are going into their homes."

Snitker heard about The Hub from fellow business owners and went to the group's first meeting in March.

"At our first meeting, I was like, 'I'm just starting out,' and now our company has grown so much. We've put so many different teams on the road and everything, and it's all been because of the support that I've had from The Hub," said Snitker.

"It took us to another level. It really did," said James Morris, owner of Morris Tree Service and Landscaping. "It put us around like-minded business people with great ideas, sharing ideas, and teaching one another."

The owners of Templar Contracting said the idea for The Hub was something they'd talked about for a long time.

"I said, 'Joey, we need to have a place where businesses can collaborate, people can get together, we can talk about innovation -- not just helping out the citizens in the community, but helping out other business members,'" said Regan Weiss, co-owner of Templar Contracting.

Weiss said the first meeting in March drew 30 people. As the pandemic progressed, those meetings moved to Zoom and FaceTime. A Facebook group started just last week had gained more than 4,700 members by Friday.

"Honestly, I'm not surprised at all," Templar Co-Owner Joey Deeb said of the response. "I know people are just waiting and waiting and waiting for some valid information. We chime in on a lot of networking groups trying to tell the truth, and we get knocked out."

The Hub is meant to be different.

"We want positivity," said Deeb. "Everyone has gone through a lot the last several months. It takes a toll on everyone. Our emotions are high, our stress level's high, everybody's in their homes. We want positivity, collaboration, teamwork -- we want to build this community together."

That's where the buses come in. The owner of Blackjack Media Group, Amanda Hart, said her business has an exclusive contract to place advertising on Pasco buses. She reached out to fellow members of The Hub and helped guide them through the process. 

"This is just absolutely phenomenal that these businesses are supporting each other, and it also made it cost effective, in this crazy world, for them to literally hop on the bus," Hart said.

Snitker said it's exposure she wouldn't be able to afford without this joint effort.

"Absolutely not. Our business wouldn't even be where it is today if it hadn't been for everybody. They were honestly just such a great support system through COVID, and really, we all kind of navigated together. There's just no way we even would've survived without everybody," Snitker said.

"I will tell you, we watched businesses grow during this time when you hear a lot of negativity. We watched businesses lift each other up," Weiss said.

To learn more about The Hub, visit: