‘Street Vendor Bootcamp’ launched to help Sacramento business owners

(FOX40.COM) — The Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has launched a brand-new program aimed at helping street vendors in the city learn how to launch their business safely and properly. It’s called the “Street Vendor Bootcamp.”

David Contto, a business consultant with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said it all began after they realized the huge need and absence for this type of resource in the community.

“60% of our country’s economy is driven by a small business owners,” Contto said.

Now, Sacramento is the first city in Northern California to have a program like this.

“This is people’s main source of income, and a lot of them that we met, this is what they’re doing to survive,” Contto said. “We realized that there is a lot of lack of understanding. We wanted to come in the middle and help them with the language, with the paperwork.”

Each 5-hour workshop provides the tools and information needed to start their own vendor cart business. The workshops are modeled after similar ones done in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The last workshop with the Chamber of Commerce included Sacramento city and county representatives.

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“It puts business owners at ease to know that the city is not against them, it’s for them and they do want them to operate. They do want them to work and there’s steps they have to follow,” Contto said.

The hope is to answer the unknowns and streamline the access to tools and resources.

“It’s not just setting up and start selling there’s requirements they have to meet. We want them to be compliant and we want them to provide not only good food and good service,” Contto said.

While for many their business starts on the streets, the mission is to help business owners reach even bigger goals.

“The goal is to take them from the streets and what a wonderful thing it would be to help them open up a shop where they can operate,” Contto said.

These workshops are completely free and are done in Spanish with translators available when needed.

The next one will be on at 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 24. For more information visit business.sachcc.org .

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