Good morning everyone. It is a pleasure to be here today. I am excited to celebrate all women. Congratulations to all of you on Women’s History Month.
Today, this event brings together valuable women in our community and our organization and is yet another demonstration of how important it is to IHCC that technical assistance reaches everyone equally, without color, language, or gender barriers.
President Toni Preckwinkle, thank you for your work on behalf of our communities, generating opportunities, and working for a better distribution of wealth. You help to make economic development fairer, more equitable, and transparent. I am infinitely grateful for your participation today’s meeting.
Thanks to the vision of Toni Preckwinkle and the leadership of Xochitl Flores, IHCC has been able to help hundreds of small businesses through the Cook County Covid19 Recovery Small Businesses Assistance Program. This program has alleviated the economic impact of the crisis on many Latino entrepreneurs, maintained jobs open, and prevented hundreds of families in our community to suffer.
Also, I am grateful to you, Arabel Alva Rosales for your constant support to our work and your permanent vocation of service. Your support, and that of the rest of the Board of Directors allows our team to help our businesses community, which need it so much in these difficult times.
Part of the team at the IHCC has been renewed this 2021, and that is also good news. There is a lot of young blood helping the older ones. There are many new dreams, and that is a reason for hope.
We have been facing the pandemic for a year now, and still, there are many challenges to our programs.
The IHCC continues to focus on education, which is the key to extending technical assistance to entrepreneurs and small business owners. We will have more remote educative programs this year than ever in our history due to technology and our team skills.
We will also return to our mission of expanding networking by organizing more social events. Gradually, we will bring our community back together in small groups, respecting the social distancing measures and making networking again an important connecting tool in our business community. You can find our updated calendar of events on our website. There are many surprises in store for this year.
Based on the suggestions from our members, clients, and corporate partners and findings from our 2020 Annual Service Satisfaction Survey, we are increasing the number of social and networking events scheduled for 2021. We will further expand the possibilities to connect with our Hispanic business community. Here is the Calendar of Events for this year: https://bit.ly/3qE5HUK