Message from the director

Dear friends and supporters,

I hope this message finds each of you well and healthy! We are so proud to be approaching our sixteenth year in service to our community this coming June 2024! During 2023, with Covid behind us, MHC operated at normal levels and we also reopened every Saturday to welcome more visitors.

2023 was extra special as we were able to celebrate our 15th anniversary, a significant milestone for MHC, with a beautiful open house celebration and ribbon cutting held in June 2023. We continued to work to bring services to our community and maintain our collection and facility in top shape. Rotating exhibits with our partners from Humanities Texas, UTRGV Chaps and the Valley Land Fund continued to draw large groups of visitors. The “Cesar Chavez: In his own Words” panel exhibit from Humanities Texas held in August 2023 drew over 145 guests at the opening reception alone and created significant interest during it’s time on display. Book readings and art displays by local authors and artists were held during 2023 to celebrate our local talent.

Our museum store, La Tiendita, which is also an online store continues to be highly successful. We offer a range of historical books, books by local authors, videos, postcards, and apparel along with fun McAllen souvenirs, the popular board game “McAllenopoly” and items crafted by local artisans.

Our annual fundraiser: Chuckwagon Dinner in partnership with Macaroni Grill McAllen was, once again, a sold-out event and we are grateful to all our repeat supporters of this dinner fundraiser!

The beautiful “Greetings from McAllen” mural completed in late 2021 continues to drive guests to the La Placita park for photos. We also conducted 3 outdoor mini festivals that were extremely well received. The "MacGrinch" photo event at the La Placita park at Christmas was attended by over 200 visitors. We will continue to offer this event which features free photo opportunities for kids with MacGrinch, along with goodies and treats for all. Our intention is twofold: to promote the museum and elevate our thriving downtown McAllen for area residents.

We completed the indoor painting of the building in early 2023 and are continuing to make progress on our Museum Annex as the Design Phase work is underway. The Annex will serve our space needs into the future and continue to beautify downtown McAllen. Fundraising efforts are in the planning stages and we will be reaching out to our community soon for their support. Additional collection storage space is in the planning stages to enclose the largely unused back porch area. We anticipate completion of this important addition by mid-year 2024.

I am very thankful for our dedicated staff: Joe Vidales-Curator, Gabriel Elizondo- Assistant Marketing and social media Director, David Martinez, Nora Musule & Lily Hernandez-Museum Services, along with our volunteers such as Spud Brown and Pikey Rodriguez and our student interns.

Our loyal Board of Directors are also strong supporters along my joint Co-Founders: Dr. Nedra Kinerk and Spurgeon “Spud” Brown. These very special people are deeply appreciated! As always, we thank all our friends in the community along with the City of McAllen for their ongoing support of MHC! Please visit the museum soon!

My best regards to each of you!

Elva M. Cerda
MHC Director

Our Mission Statement

The McAllen Heritage Center, Inc. (MHC) is a nonprofit Corporation. The concise mission statement of the MHC is: Our mission is to provide a place to exhibit and assist in the preservation of documents, papers, pictures, works of art, records, maps, artifacts and writings of historical, traditional or cultural value. The MHC wants to perpetuate and educate about those customs of the people, traditions and folklore, which beautify and enrich the community life of historic McAllen, Texas.