Internship Pilot

The strength and size of a community’s business owners is directly correlated to the outcomes for that community.  The Hispanic Collaborative has worked to grow the number of Latino Owned Businesses in our region with efforts like mercadoMKE, an online marketplace free to Latino business owners.  The platform offers free participation, extensive technical assistance, and resources for businesses to showcase their products online. Currently, over 125 businesses are active on mercadoMKE, benefiting from increased visibility and sales. We have recently completed a pilot of supporting these businesses now online by providing free social media execution and support to each business through the power of Latino college students from 6 area universities.  These college students also gained valuable work experience and connections while supporting our local small businesses.  We believe that this model increases the scale of support that our Latino community can provide to better meet the volume needs of small businesses while also making our Latino college students more competitive.