How McAllen Funds Latina Business

They tell you the border is something to be afraid of. McAllen tells a completely different story. A festival city. A grant written in the area code. A chamber that opens the door for a hundred dollars. The narrative you have been handed about South Texas was never the whole picture, and one day in the 956 makes that obvious. On this road tour stop, Anjelica Cazares and Monica Vallejo sat down with five of the people who actually run McAllen's events and entrepreneurship machine: Joe Garcia of the McAllen Convention Center, Lee Wooldridge of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, Amy De Laos and Carlin Williams from the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, and Yajayda Flores, who directs the entire convention facilities campus. Between them they touch over 500 events a year and the programs that turn an idea into a registered business. You will walk away knowing how to get funded, how to get on a vendor list, and how a city decides to bet on its own founders. This is the map, amiga.