The El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce will begin operating the second Satellite of the Women's Business Border Center at the Army Community Services Building at Fort Bliss, located at Building 2494 Ricker Road on September 1, 2005.

The second satellite was established specifically as a resource for military spouses who are interested in microenterprise opportunities.

“The number one reason that military spouses are starting mobile, home based businesses, is to be able to contribute financially to the upkeep of the family,” said Terri Reed, Director of the Women's Business Border Center of the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “We serve as the resource to help them unlock the path to new markets, new connections and new clients. We identify their strengths and work on those to develop viable home based businesses that can to with them from one duty station to another and be successful.”

The Women’s Business Border Center is a joint project of the El Paso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Small Business Administration. It is a nonprofit, community-based organization that helps women to start and grow their business.

The first project of the Women's Business Border Center and Fort Bliss is to identify local child care facilities that can be groomed for accreditation as Child Development Centers. Two seminars are scheduled for Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 7:30 p.m., and another on Saturday, July 30, 2005 at 9:00 a.m. Both sessions will be held at the downtown Chase Bank Building, 201 E. Main, on the 6th floor.

The Women's Business Border Center provides financial literacy training, networking, technical assistance, and loan packaging services to women across the El Paso region.

Key services include building awareness around business opportunities for women and how to take full advantage of these opportunities; providing bilingual technical assistance for all phases of women owned business, including writing and formalizing business and marketing plans; assistance in all phases of business expansion, and helping clients access capital to fund their ventures.

The Center will commence operation on September 1, and will operate with trained technical assistance providers on-sight three days per week. Training sessions and workshops will be conducted on a monthly basis. All of the services provided are free of charge. In addition, the Chamber and its volunteer representatives are well equipped to provide general information about El Paso, including tourism information, guides to schools and utilities and other general information.

For more information about the Women's Business Border Center Fort Bliss Satellite office and our services and programs, please call Terri at 915-566-4066.