El Padrino Apparel and Soccer Nation is the winner of this year’s KCK Chamber Small Business of the Year Award.

Owner Raul Villegas accepted the award during a luncheon Friday at Sporting Park. Villegas operates a booming indoor-soccer league and a retail outlet that sells soccer gear and party supplies. He’s also a graduate of ScaleUP! Kansas City’s inaugural class. (You can read about his experiences in ScaleUP! here.) The other finalists were Art’s Mexican Products and Office Products Alliance.

The chamber presented its New Small Business of the Year Award to RFP365, a local startup that has developed a software solution that makes the request-for-proposal process more efficient. RFP365, which is located in Startup Village, recently won an important new contract with the City of Kansas City, Mo. Topp’d Pizza and Victory Automotive also were in the running for the New Small Business award.

Community Housing of Wyandotte County was named the chamber’s Nonprofit of the Year. The organization builds and renovates homes, as a way to rebuild and reinvest in neighborhoods. The other nonprofit finalists were the Duchesne Clinic and Startup Village.

(Raul Villegas of El Padrino Apparel and Soccer Nation // photo courtesy of Elements Studio Photography)