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WENTWORTH, N.C. – About a dozen Rockingham County small business owners got together Friday with Rep. Brad Miller to talk about bank lending and how that's affecting their businesses.

Miller says he wants to know about the problems preventing them from operating successfully.

Ella Mcbride-Chatham started her small business just a few years ago. And while she's been able to weather the struggling economy, she says she needs a small business loan to help with cash flow. But the banks are telling her no.

“They say that it is very hard for them to untie their hands to be able to help a small business owner,” McBride-Chatham, owner of Riverhouse Gift and Gourmet in Eden, said. “It's very frustrating because you need capital to keep going, to keep growing.”

She says she wants to expand her business and add more employees, but without the bank's help, it's not going to happen.

“It's frustrating because you want to keep going, and people are depending on you to keep going, but you can't because your banks won't work with you,” McBride-Chatham said.

There are many other small businesses that are going through the same thing. That’s why Miller wanted to hear firsthand about what they're experiencing.

“They've got customers, they've got a product that they can sell, but they can't get the lending to expand their operations and hire new employees. And that's what has got to happen for the economy to get going,” Miller said.

And he says the government is working on some solutions.

“The Obama Administration is now proposing a lending program for small banks that have got to turn around and lend that money to small businesses, but we have got to get money out to the people who can really create jobs,” Miller said.

The small businesses say they just want a chance to be successful, but they can't do that if banks aren't lending.

McBride-Chatham says she hopes something positive will come out of this forum.

“Well I am glad he was here to hear our voice and take it back to Washington. And hopefully it will get to President Obama that that stimulus money is just not getting out to the little guy,” she said.

Miller says he plans to take the comments and concerns expressed during the roundtable back to Washington for an upcoming congressional hearing.