Improving Resiliency in Brownsville

Improving resiliency: The City of Brownsville, Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, and UTRGV working together to assist businesses in establishing online revenue streams.

June 1, 2020 – BROWNSVILLE, TX – The City of Brownsville, Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC) and the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) have partnered up to offer a free certified workshop on e-commerce to three hundred unique businesses in Brownsville, Texas as an effort to promote resilience and innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The workshop will be facilitated by UTRGV’s Entrepreneurship & Commercialization Center, an eBridge partner, and will help local businesses grow their businesses through online platforms, maintain profit margins intact, keep a positive cash flow and minimize sales and service disruptions in a volatile market.

The effort was created and led by the City of Brownsville’s Retail and Redevelopment Division and developed as a response to key feedback received by BCIC’s online business registry system, which launched days before COVID-19 social distancing measures were implemented across Cameron County. During the thorough review of the data and feedback collected, it was identified that businesses throughout Brownsville, Texas also lacked an online presence which could have enabled them to sustain the loss of revenue from in-person transactions as observed throughout the entire state and country. As a result, BCIC, the community’s “type b” economic development organization, committed a total of $15,000 to provide free registrations, resources, and tools for three hundred unique businesses in the city.

“Our community is unique. It is mostly comprised of entrepreneurs that strive day in and day out to adapt to these challenging times, and it is our responsibility to foster and promote resiliency by offering all possible resources that help them achieve success. This workshop is intended to help and promote the necessary innovation that our local businesses need to adapt and diversify their revenue and reach new markets”, said Burkhart.

The close partnership among all organizations continues to provide dividends to the community and as a result of COVID-19, we are now experiencing an accelerated approach to ensure the community is able to obtain all the opportunities needed to grow and expand. Mayor Trey Mendez stated, “The last two and a half months have shown us that the most important characteristic for our residents is resiliency. Nowhere is that more important than throughout our small business community. As we begin to consider options to reclaim our livelihood and way of life, businesses must be able to adapt to a very different world. This program will be very helpful to those who take part and I am very much looking forward to seeing the results.”

UTRGV will begin to accept registrations by visiting the BTX Cares website, and clicking on “Register Today: Get Digital”. The two-hour workshop will begin June 9 at 10:00 a.m. and a second workshop to begin June 2:00 p.m. For more information on the workshops please contact the Entrepreneurship & Commercialization Center at (956) 882-4119 or via e-mail atecc@utrgv.edu.