SYRACUSE -- For the second year in a row, Syracuse has been selected as a host city for the Emerging Leaders Initiative.

The U.S. Small Business Administration will provide a mentoring program for qualifying businesses in Central New York.

The 8 month class called e200, will give business owners 100 hours of training and deeper connections with their peers and community leaders, to help their businesses grow. It teaches owners how to acquire financing, access new markets and leverage networking.

Jeffery Steigerwald was one of a dozen people who graduated from the 2011 class. He is the president of Liehs & Steigerwald and says the class helped him expand his business into catering. "With my participation in e200, it really prepared me to analyze an opportunity, put together a plan and five months later we're still working with that catering opportunity and its helping my business grow and achieve some of the things I set out to achieve," Steigerwald said.

The initiative from watching is helping businesses across the country, and has a lot of support in Congress. 24th district Representative Ann Marie Buerkle said, "We're saying to these startup businesses and small businesses we're going to give you a hand up, not a hand out. We want you to be successful, we want you to grow your dream, we want you to grow that dream into something bigger and better."

To qualify the business must be located in the Syracuse area and have an annual revenue of between $400,000 and $10 million. The business has to be in operation for at least three years.

People interested in participating need to request a letter of interest form from the small business administration by March 15.