South Park Small Business Market Promotes Latino Vendors, Community Resources

by Julia Park

The houses on South Southern Street and 10th Avenue South were quiet and still under the clear skies of a Saturday afternoon on Jan. 20. Cars lined the curb on both sides of the road, but few people stirred.

Meanwhile, chatter, laughter, and the slightly spicy aroma of fresh tacos and tamales filled the main room of the brick building on the corner. Pastel-colored balloons welcomed visitors to the door, which was propped open in spite of the chill outside.

Hosted by Growing Contigo in partnership with Villa Comunitaria and with the support of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods, the small-business market brought 12 Latino vendors together to display and sell their wares to local customers.

Growing Contigo is a consulting company that helps small businesses succeed through providing resources, knowledge, and connections, and it aims to help build generational wealth in BIPOC communities.

It's a mission very personal to CEO Jos Manuel Vasquez, who grew up in a family that owned a small video store and sandwich shop in South Park. His family never spent a dime on advertising, he says. People in the community found out about their business through word of mouth.

Vasquez also grew up undocumented, which presented challenges in finding legal employment in the U.S. Through business ownership, he and his family have been able to make a living. After years of working in nonprofits, he says he believes entrepreneurship is the way out of poverty.

Noemi Gonzaga owns CloudTree, a photography business. She graduated from Growing Contigo and Villa Comunitaria's entrepreneur incubator program alongside several other Latina business owners. Besides CloudTree, Lupiatas Seattle, Pris Consulting, Tintero Azul, Galy Fashion, and El Mixteco Aguas Frescas also graduated from the program and were present at the market.

"We feel … just love," Gonzaga said. "You know, love from the community, and just having that friend to say, you know, dream big, you can do it, it's not too late, you have talents, keep working on those and also learn from the areas that you can improve. And now this is the product from all of this that we can show."

The small business incubator program was one of nine pilot projects funded by the Generational Wealth initiative through the City of Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods. The initiative was designed to support community-based efforts to close the racial wealth gap by helping BIPOC communities acquire assets they can pass down to future generations.

Entrepreneurs in the program received training in Spanish to help them build skills in business-plan development, marketing and branding, social media management, and more.

Growing Contigo provides what the website calls "culturally-relevant tools, resources, and knowledge" with entrepreneurs and small-business owners. For Vasquez, this means sharing his story of growing up as an undocumented immigrant with the participants in the incubator program. His ability to relate to them makes the training different from what they could learn on their own through YouTube, he says.

Entrepreneurship is especially important for undocumented immigrants because it provides an alternate source of income when getting a legal job isn't possible.

"Being able to work with my fellow undocumented community and help them navigate the complexities or just learn how to interact with government workers [with] a lack of trust with government, if you're in that situation," Vasquez said. "That's something that is very personal to me and I bring through my work every day."

Vasquez says his next goal is founding a nonprofit to expand Growing Contigo's ability to fundraise, provide scholarships to entrepreneurs, and provide business education and development support.

"I love South Park, I love the community," said Emily Westlake, a visitor from Beacon Hill. "And yeah, [I'm] just excited to see local artists and buy some local art."

Featured Image: CloudTree owner Noemi Gonzaga poses for a photo with her family, who helps her with her business, behind their table at the market on Jan. 20. Her husband sometimes goes with her for support when she photographs big events, such as weddings and quinceaeras. (Photo: Julia Park)