Program areas at Weslaco Chamber of Commerce
The wacc provides various programs and initiatives to prepare future leaders of our community through various educational programs. These programs support our business alliances in the development of skills necessary to run a successful business. We host an annual leadership mid valley initiative which consists of 8 months of continuing education in various topics. To date the mid valley leadership program has held 17 years of cohorts, with over 150 alumni of leaders serving the community at large. We offer various opportunities for the communitys youth to prepare for the future including two summer camps that serve over 65 Weslaco isd students and a back to school event that serves over 300 mid valley educators.
The wacc focuses on advertising outside of Weslaco to promote Weslaco as a visitors destination. Marketing is done in a variety of ways, including advertising, billboards, city promotions, and trade shows. Each year, the Weslaco visitors center sees many individuals and groups come in for information , events, or special presentations. For the 2021-22 year, we had 11,271 visitors. Community engagement has increased tremendously. In this fiscal year, we had over 25,000 participants in our community events such as the annual christmas parade and the Texas onion festival.we reach over 35,000 winter Texan visitors in order to help them relocate to Weslaco during the winter Texas season. We market to the birding community to encourgage them to visit and stay in Weslaco and visit our 3 nature parks. Our border community marketing efforts to promote Weslaco in mexico reaches over 316,000 impressions. We have 2 billboards that approximately 700,000 people view.
The wacc has grown membership services for businesses through a variety of programs and opportunities. In 2021-22, we held over 36 ribbon cuttings to celebrate members achievements and accomplishments. We held over 36 networking events, including job fairs and community events. We offered advance search engine optimization on our website to support members. We have grown our social media pages dramatically over the past year and have offered members opportunities for greater viewership. We have initiated stronger support local initiatives through our cash mobs to support retailers and lunch mobs to support local restaurants, all while enhancing our connections with peers. Weve held workshops in leadership, customer service, small business financials,small business operations and strategies, as well as seminars on hotel tax law. We have enhanced our leadership program to allow local business and community leaders to refine thier leadership skills.