Business
Peace Through Commerce
In September 2023, I rage-launched Los Compas Coffee, a coffee roasting social enterprise that teaches opportunity youth about the liberatory power of small business entrepreneurship.
My Writing
What's cooking in my head and heart. All posts are sent out via newsletters. Subscribe if you don't want to miss anything!
Community
The Fruits of Flipping Bitches
One sunny day in December 2022, I was barreling down the main road that runs through my neighborhood and zipped by a fellow smoking a cigar outside of his garage in a thoroughly 1990s windbreaker. A glint caught my eye.
Health
When Life Shakes You Down
In December of 2021, I languished in a hospital bed for nine days. An infection was carved out of my body. It was the scariest time, the medical trauma of which has only recently fallen off.
Work
The Grief of Being Complicit
Even when most individuals in large system are operating with the best intentions, the machinery of the system renders injustices. It's hard not to feel complicit.
Food
A Trip to a Warehouse ☕️
Being in the Klatch Coffee warehouse and training center was more than a learning experience. It was a throwback to growing up in a food warehouse and what my father built.
Memoir
Picnic Sandwiches
One day a white Ford Econoline van appeared, so old that its paint was matted, its enamel sheared away by time and smogwinds. It's name was Picnic Sandwiches, and it was my father's mighty chariot.
Memoir
My Madam Bovary Story
My immigrant parents were very tight with money and very deliberate in shaping our attitudes about it. Buying books was a complicated affair.
Family
The Garden, Dad, and I
I spent much of my time growing up, especially my adolescent years, with my father in our backyard garden. We had this lust to grow things together.
People
Peggy
The best way I can describe Peggy is that she is the kind of woman you’d want to steal horses with.
People
A Beautiful Harvest
Each time we speak, it is so obvious to me that people mean a great deal to Louie. He sees farming as an opportunity he can provide to others in their search for purpose, especially youth.
Food
Tending to the Blaze
Trevor Walsh is a fire captain in my hometown. I asked him what firefighters eat while they're out on the job. We caught up on the phone during one of his drives home.
America
Coffee, Gum, and a Brownie on The Hill
Beth Bellizzi was dedicated to her career in politics because she was passionate about supporting the people of her state. But many of her favorite moments of making a difference happened off The Hill.
Food
A Musty School Lunch
Given my background, one would think my work lunch would be a more elaborate affair, But gluing two slices together with dijon was all I felt capable of.
Impact
These Legumes Offer a Leg Up
Women's Bean Project is in two businesses: human services and food manufacturing. "Our goal is to deliver employees to the community who will show up everyday."
People
The Wild Alone
The small friendship I developed with Louie is multi-generational; it came through my father and his generation's ability to develop and share strong, lifelong connections.
Impact
Vote With Your Feet to End Youth Homelessness
Hippy Feet brings jobs directly to homeless youth, bypassing transportation difficulties and other barriers young people face when seeking employment.
Impact
It's a Beautiful Day for Refugees
Beautiful Day is a thriving nonprofit with a mission "to help refugees, especially youth and the most vulnerable, to enter the job market and become welcomed, self-sufficient members of our community."
Impact
Unaccompanied Minors Become Unstoppable Women
The suburban oasis of RefuSHE offers a healing space where young women recapture their lives and learn to lead through heritage textile arts.