Staunton shops are being held up as an example of small business success in a conference that began Thursday at the Stonewall Jackson Hotel. The event is hosted by the Virginia Microenterprise Network and features national speakers and local business owners.

The conference comes on the heels of a small businesses jobs bill that passed Congress and was signed into law by President Obama on Monday. The new law raises the amount of money available to businesses applying for a microloan from $35,000 to $50,000, a change experts say is crucial to economic recovery.

"[Small businesses] are finding their ways to get the capital and to be as innovative as they always have in terms of bringing this economy back. Small businesses and microenterprises will be key to a full recovery that we're still waiting on," says Connie Evans, C.E.O. of the Association for Enterprise Opportunities.

Evans says making capital available will also enable new and existing small businesses to hire more employees, bringing the jobless numbers down and further assisting in economic recovery.