Los Angeles City Hall is putting serious money where its mouth is, with Mayor Karen Bass’ ProcureLA initiative helping small and local businesses snag more than $45 million in contracts. The effort is steering work to homegrown vendors in food service, wellness, construction, and other everyday sectors, pairing procurement opportunities with hands-on training and matchmaking so local companies are ready for big, event-driven jobs. Business owners who landed deals say the contracts turned into new hires and steadier revenue at a moment when many neighborhood shops are still on shaky ground.
According to Mayor Karen Bass, ProcureLA, launched in October 2024, has enrolled more than 100 businesses and contacted over 3,000 companies while securing "more than $45 million" in public and private-sector contracts. City officials are pitching the milestone as part of a broader push to make sure Angelenos, not just global brands, benefit from the wave of major events headed to Los Angeles. The mayor’s office said the program has already been spotlighted at procurement summits and outreach events tied to games and sports sourcing.
The rollout highlighted several small vendors, including Cuernavaca Grill, Nappily Naturals & Apothecary, and construction firm Hollywood Handy Construction, and the owners did not mince words about the impact. “We’ve been able to keep the doors open, hire more employees, and secure a major contract for the FIFA World Cup,” Cuernavaca Grill owner Nayomie Mendoza told the mayor’s office. Another owner said ProcureLA helped her expand bidding capacity and finally win city work that had long gone to bigger players. Those testimonials appeared in the city announcement and in local coverage of the program.
How ProcureLA Works
ProcureLA is run by the nonprofit Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment (PACE) and offers workshops, one-on-one technical assistance, help with certifications and proposal writing, and connections to procurement portals. On the program’s website and in PACE’s descriptions, these services are framed as tools to help small vendors clear bonding, insurance, and compliance hurdles that often keep them out of the running. Staff says the aim is to move kitchen-table operations into the main contracting pipeline for major events and city work. Businesses can sign up for training cohorts and targeted matchmaking through the ProcureLA portal.
Why This Matters Ahead of Big Events
The timing is no accident. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl, and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games coming into focus, officials say boosting local supplier capacity now could funnel billions of dollars to neighborhood businesses. City procurement and event sourcing rely on the Regional Alliance Marketplace for Procurement (RAMP) as a central hub for opportunities, and partners have been urging vendors to register so they can receive alerts on bids and requests for information. LA28 and regional partners have laid out procurement strategies that prioritize regional firms and small vendors. Advocates say that if businesses can get past administrative and financing hurdles, this pipeline can turn short bursts of event work into longer-term revenue.
City officials describe ProcureLA as an early step toward a more equitable procurement system, while acknowledging that access to capital, bonding, and insurance still blocks many would-be suppliers. Businesses looking for help or trying to register for workshops can visit ProcureLA for details, and local coverage of the May announcement is available from the Santa Monica Mirror. City leaders say they plan to keep reporting new milestones as additional contracts are awarded and the work actually hits the ground.
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