{"id":3139,"date":"2022-10-10T21:18:16","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T21:18:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/?p=3139"},"modified":"2025-07-25T08:27:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T08:27:37","slug":"bcic-utrgv-covid19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/bcic-utrgv-covid19\/","title":{"rendered":"BCIC & UTRGV ECC team up to help Brownsville Small Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jolanie Martinez \u2022 Apr 27, 2020<\/p>\n

BROWNSVILLE, Texas \u2014 This new reality is hard for small businesses, but the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation and UTRGV\u2019s Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center are working together to help business owners in Brownsville figure out the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university has been a tremendous partner, will continue to be a tremendous partner to us to not only address the pandemic now, but also think about the future programming that\u2019s gonna help businesses grow and accelerate and continue to innovate,\u201d said the Executive Director of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation<\/a> (BCIC).<\/p>\n

BCIC immediately developed a business registry system to collect data showcasing how COVID-19 has impacted businesses and helping them reach out to businesses is UTRGV\u2019s Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center<\/a> (ECC).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re making calls to local businesses, letting them know about resources or loans that the city has to offer,\u201d said Bertha Lance, student assistant of UTRGV\u2019s ECC. \u201cA lot of them are struggling with payroll so we are guiding them toward the (PPP Paycheck Protection Program) loans for like pay roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lance, a political science major said the initiative has been a learning experience for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally love it, it feels really nice and rewarding afterwards hearing the people thanking you,\u201d said Lance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university has been a tremendous partner, will continue to be a tremendous partner to us to not only address the pandemic now, but also think about the future programming that\u2019s gonna help businesses grow and accelerate and continue to innovate,\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWe knew from the beginning that as soon as you reach out to these business owners they would feel like the community is caring about them,\u201d says the BCIC. \u201cSo in some cases they\u2019re able to vent completely exactly what issues they\u2019re currently facing which becomes valuable information for us because then we are able to consider other options for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while the students are learning along the way, so is the staff of the ECC.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our students in our center are now working towards you know kind of researching how you can re-innovate in a small business, in a food industry or in a professional development industry or retail for that matter,\u201d said Linda Ufland, the manager of the ECC.<\/p>\n

With the data they have collected, the BCIC has been able to launch their own programs to be able to provide assistance to Brownsville businesses. For any Brownsville businesses needing assistance, you can fill out a business registry<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jolanie Martinez \u2022 Apr 27, 2020 BROWNSVILLE, Texas \u2014 This new reality is hard for small businesses, but the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation and UTRGV\u2019s Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center are working together to help business owners in Brownsville figure out the future. \u201cThe university has been a tremendous partner, will continue to be a tremendous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_angie_page":false,"content-type":"","page_builder":"","feature_success_story":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-development","category-economic-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brownsvillecic.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}