Wisconsin's Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Gala to Award Latino Website MiVoz Small Business of the Year - Among other Awards
The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Wisconsin is about to hold its 24th annual gala and awards dinner in Milwaukee, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. There, the chamber will hand out awards to local businesses, including a Small Business of the Year award to MiVoz, a community-building Latino website that covers Milwaukee and Chicago.
Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be a returning keynote speaker -- addressing the issue of immigration reform -- after which the chamber will present awards to various Hispanic businesses, both high-tech and low.
The Hispanic Small Business award is slated to go to MiVoz, an online service and website that posts events of businesses and nonprofits that affect the Latino community. Started in 2012 by Andrea Barrutia as a way to bring the Latino community in Milwaukee together, the site's initial success prompted her to expand MiVoz to cover the much larger Latino community in neighboring Chicago.
The MiVoz site features events, a business and organization directory, a blog for featured news, and a customizable homepage for frequent users. Event listings can be searched by date, category, location (cities around Milwaukee and Chicago are included) and price. The site offers both English and Spanish-language versions.
Other Hispanic businesses to be given awards this Saturday include Wanguard Parnters Inc., a real estate company that earned the Hispanic Business of the Year and ChocoBella, a chocolatier that opened in 2012 which earned Hispanic Startup of the Year.