Business & Tech

Local Chamber Lends a Hand to Local Hispanic-Owned Businesses

The Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce plans to help local Hispanic-owned businesses through a new advisory committee.

Hispanic-owned businesses in Mount Vernon will soon get a boost from the greater local business community.

The Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce recently launched its Hispanic Business Advisory Committee. Consisting of local Hispanic business owners and community leaders, the committee’s main goal is to welcome new businesses into the local business community. The committee is in its planning stages and will soon begin to work to figure out the best approach in welcoming Hispanic-owned businesses.

Before establishing this initiative, the Chamber has attempted to reach out to many ethnic businesses lining Route 1, with some difficulty.

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“Sometimes it’s harder to reach into ethnic businesses…because it’s not in their business culture,” said Dougherty. “We certainly welcome all businesses. They contribute so much vitality to the larger business community.”

Data about Mount Vernon area Hispanic-owned businesses was unavailable at press time, but there were more than 9,600 Hispanic or Latino-owned businesses in Fairfax County in 2007, according to the county’s Economic Development Authority based on U.S. Census Bureau data. That represents 8.8 percent of businesses in the county. Total sales and receipts from these companies was $1.8 billion.

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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States increased by 43.7 percent to 2.3 million between 2002 and 2007, the most recent year for which data is available. Hispanic-owned businesses generated $345.2 billion in sales in 2007, up 55.5 percent compared with 2002. The number of Hispanic-owned businesses with receipts of $1 million or more increased 51.6 percent—from 29,168 to 44,206 businesses between 2002 and 2007.

The Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce has not seen an increase in percentage of new member businesses.  But, according to Chamber Executive Director Holly Hicks Dougherty, 10 percent of member businesses are Hispanic-owned, a figure that has held steady over the past few years.

“The percentage in terms of businesses joining [is] the same percentage as existing businesses,” said Dougherty. “It’s proportional to what we had before.”

Chamber member and business owner Jose Dieguez joined the Hispanic Business Advisory Committee to educate local Hispanic-owned businesses about the benefits of joining the Chamber.

Said Dieguez, “I don’t like to guide people. I give them all the facts I know. “

Seven years ago, Dieguez opened Solo Flooring in the Pear Tree Village Center and was about to host his grand opening. He called on the Chamber for help and credits the organization for their support of his successful flooring business.

“The Chamber of Commerce used to be two doors down,” recalls Dieguez. “I talked to Holly, and she helped with opening day. Gerry Hyland came. The response has been very good.”

“Route 1 has improved for the better, and Hispanic businesses have invested in it,” Dieguez continued.

Diegues plans on taking an active role in recruiting Hispanic-owned businesses to the Chamber. The first item on his agenda is helping the Chamber translate its recruitment pamphlets. Because Spanish has many different dialects, Dieguez aims to translate the materials to a dialect that can be understood by most native Spanish speakers.

“A lot of people from different countries are sometimes hard to converse with,” said Dieguez. “We’re going to try to figure out the best translation." 

Correction: In a previous edition of this story, business owner Jose Dieguez's last name was spelled incorrectly. Patch regrets the error. 


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