Tampa man worked with mayor's office to make education more accessible

Brian Serrano, who was born in Miami and moved to Tampa in 2012, is passionate about making a difference in his community.

“My family is originally from Puerto Rico and I was raised in both a Puerto Rican and Cuban household. I like to associate myself as being CubaRican!” said Serrano. “It’s really about helping others and either watching an individual or watching a business grow, especially business or members of the community that are underserved.”

Serrano is on the mayor of Tampa’s Hispanic Advisory Council and was chair from 2020 to 2024. During his tenure as chair, they raised more than a million dollars in scholarships for students and created a mentorship program called DALE, which stands for Development Accelerated for Latinos Education. The idea is to surround students with different types of working professionals to expand their horizons and ideas of what’s possible for them. “It encourages them, inspires them to either go to college or to establish a business of their own,” said Serrano.

Serrano has also been involved in making sure people with less resources in the community have basic necessities. “We have given away over 400 baskets to elderly Latino residents living in subsidized housing filled with hygienic and non-perishable food goods,” said Serrano.

He was involved in creating an event called 813 Cafecito. This in-person and virtual event is aimed at making crucial information more accessible to the local Latin community. “We’ve done multiple 813 Cafecito events on Covid, mental health awareness and affordable housing and other important topics,” said Serrano.

He serves as an ambassador of the Tampa Business Club. “The Tampa Business Club, today, has a massive platform that helps small businesses foster relationships and to help grow their revenue,” said Serrano

My last question to him was, what makes him proud to be Hispanic? “What makes me proud to be a part of the Hispanic culture is the tightly-knit community. It’s big, it’s vast. There’s a plethora of backgrounds. We all look different, we all sound different, we’re all from different countries and nationalities, but we work together and come together as one large family,” said Serrano.

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