Catholic Maker Spotlight: Milagros Coffee Co.
Q. How did you first discover your passion for coffee, and
what inspired you to start your business?
Our coffee concept and company has been in the works since 2011. I was living
in Santa Monica and teaching in South Central at the time, while volunteering on
the Confirmation, Youth Ministry and Vespers team at my parish Saint Monica’s.
In both communities of education and Catholic faith, they seemed to go hand in
hand over time. Connecting with the homeless too as part of my ministry life
opened my eyes toward creating a classroom for the world in some way. As a
teacher I planned a lot of my lessons in coffee shops, and as I was spending
more time in these spaces where I witnessed and received firsthand how coffee
brings people of all kinds together. Through prayer, I felt the calling to move to
the East Coast to be near my brother’s family. While living there, a coffee
roastery opened up and in its early stages, I began to work for them while
teaching. I eventually left the classroom as a teacher and joined full time working
for this small micro-roastery. I gained experience in the specialty coffee industry,
traveled to other countries to source the coffee and meet the hands behind the
labor on the coffee farms. Finally, with the full picture of how coffee is cultivated,
to how social justice is affected by the connection and purchase of coffee, and
bringing it back to the states in order to connect with community and bring people
together – I finally saw that we could create a concept like this where we bring
the secular and the faithful together under one roof. With the pop-up concept, we
are able to enter various community spaces, meaning we are able to invite the
community at large and share God’s love through who we are as a company. We
tailored our menu and drink experience as well so that people are invited to pray,
submit intentions, receive prayer, ask questions, or just be curious about our
Catholic faith. Through Our Lady of Guadalupe as our logo and the bottom
portion of the logo representing the roots of the coffee plant and the labor that
goes into growing the coffee, we are able to reach people with diverse
backgrounds or people who have fallen away or looking to return to the faith.
“Milagros” means Miracles, which we also chose specifically as it is inviting to
people of all generations and backgrounds. Many times, this is the most
common ground for a conversation over coffee about faith to begin.
Q. Can you share a memorable experience that shaped your journey and influenced your work?
When I was working in the specialty coffee industry, I had the chance to travel to
Colombia and stay on a farm, learning the operations and traveling the nearby
areas to understand how specialty coffee gives back to these rural areas and
their communities. While on this trip, we stayed in a village where St. Laura
Montoya is from in Colombia. I asked my crew to wait for me while I went into
the basilica dedicated to her and prayed for the future of this concept to come to
life one day. I also prayed for the company I worked for and the owners of the
company who are now our close friends and have supported us in this coffee
journey as coffee partners. Throughout this trip, Mary was everywhere. She was
in every front yard of the little shacks and shanties in the villages, she was on top
of buildings as a statue or above signs when you’d turn a corner while traveling.
Being of Mexican decent, and having a personal relationship with Mary, I
immediately saw how Mary would be at the center of helping me role out this
idea one day. We took many years to discern the details of this company, the
name and spent every second in prayer, asking for the intercession of various
Saints, Our Lady of Guadalupe being one of them. In our prayers, we felt God
highlighting this specific trip to Colombia and the impact it made on my faith, this
coffee journey and my Catholic life as a wife and active parishioner. Through
these moments, God was planting the seeds for Milagros.
Q. What unique qualities or values do you think set you do apart
in the Catholic community?
We have a unique product to begin with, meaning, because we are serving
coffee, we have access to intentionally build, grow, facilitate and encourage
fellowship, hospitality and the overall understanding of serving others and
connecting with others in an authentic way. We use our model of hospitality as a
way to demonstrate how to enter into vulnerable conversations with people of all
backgrounds, through coffee and about faith. Moreover, we have set up our
operations so that we can one day train and mentor the youth in our Catholic
community. We are in the beginning of our operations, but while working in the
specialty coffee industry, I trained over 100 baristas throughout the whole DC
area. Through this type of training, and my background in teaching, we created a
coffee curriculum and a foundation for authentic hospitality. We will be
implementing the same methods here in our company for our future staff and in
collaboration with Youth Ministry in the future at various parishes.
Additionally, when we pop-up after mass at a parish, we donate back a portion of
our proceeds to the ministry we collaborate with or the parish itself. This is to
help ministries recruit volunteers and connect with the community more. We
serve amazing drinks and products, but in full circle fashion, our service helps
people stay and commune, discern, question, get involved, and most of all,
connect.
Q. How do you incorporate your faith into your creative process or business
practices?
Our faith is greatly demonstrated in our intention to create fellowship, our
hospitality methods, and our coffee system. In terms of our coffee system, we
have a built in “Saint Ordering System”, which means when you receive your
order card, you receive a Saint Name with the Saint prayer on it. You are
encouraged to “pray while you wait.” Many times this alone creates conversation
and rapport between us and the customer or amongst the customers waiting.
People often have a God moment, as the Saint they received is exactly the Saint
they have a connection with or affirmation about something they have been
enduring. While we serve, we connect and engage in conversation about these
God moments. Often, we share our own testimonies as well about our faith to
help the customer open up more and profess their faith. Furthermore, while you
wait or when you pick up your drink, we call out your order by your “Saint Name.”
This is important, as it takes the focus off of ourselves and instead, we hear
ourselves be called in the way God may call us. So in a sense, we are forced to
see ourselves through God’s eyes and not our own. Finally, when you get your
drink or while you are waiting, you can visit our Condiments station which has an
Intentions & Scripture Station built in. Like in my former teacher days, stations
are great ways to get people to engage and participate. In this station, you can
submit an intention in our Intentions bucket, which then gets prayed over by a
priest, deacon, the parish or a local prayer group that week. We as a company
also pray a daily rosary over the intentions. The scripture in this station is taken
directly from the readings from that day’s mass. We as a company read all the
readings and responsorial Psalm before the event. We ask God to highlight
which 2 verses the community needs when we pop-up. Through about 30
minutes of prayer and listening to God, He shows up every time and reveals
which 2 verses the people will need. We cut out the verses and people can pick
them up while they get their lid and condiments. EVERY TIME, we have
witnessed people receiving their scripture and it having a huge impact on them in
that moment. We love hearing their testimonies afterward and it has increased
our faith as well!
Q. What advice would you give to someone looking to turn their passion for
faith-based products or art into a career?
We believe any idea God is giving you, grows with time and does not need to be
rashly put into action. He shows you how your gifts, talents and passion come
together in a faith-based way through the experiences you say Yes to and the
brave decisions in your life. For us, God planted this coffee concept as a seed in
2011, which led to the first basic steps of learning about coffee and gaining
experience working in communities of all kinds. From this thorough experience,
then God made it more obvious that it was coming to life, but He stressed how
our marriage and family are more important than anything. We leaned on prayer,
the sacraments, and serving our parish to patiently allow all of the remaining
steps to fall into place according to God’s timing. I would say, “The minute you
start getting too excited and overwhelmed with your concept, go to Adoration.”
Though I know the work and courage and self-development that has gone into
the preparation of this company, we never tried to rush the process or force it to
be ready for the community. If it’s something God wants in the world, He will
make it happen and He will open the doors for you – all you have to do is walk
through and trust that He is with you. Then immerse yourself in daily prayer,
service, adoration and daily mass to continue to be aligned with His love and His
plan.
Q. Can you describe a time when your work made a significant impact on
someone’s spiritual life or faith journey? How did that experience affect
you?
There have been many stories related to this, but the one that sticks out the most
at this moment in time is the fact that many of our childhood friends and family
are not practicing Catholic or grew up Catholic and yet are curious about God.
Ever since we launched this company, all of these people who we love dearly
have come out to support us and enter into the faith with no fear for the first time.
They are more open to the idea of God’s love than ever and we know that if we
just keep popping up, more people’s faith will be affected in this way. Inside and
outside of the church, we see this impact happening.
Q. What is the most challenging aspect of your work, and how do you stay
motivated and inspired?
The most challenging aspect is that this line of work is labor intensive. We have
learned so much about how to pack up our equipment properly, gage the power
for the coffee equipment, let people help us even though they are not trained in
coffee (as in when our friends want to help us pack up or set up), and pack our
truck properly so that nothing falls off on the freeway =) I have a lot of
experience with all of this in the past working with the company I worked for, but
we were all trained and under the same umbrella of coffee knowledge. In the
faith-based version of this format, I do not expect others to understand what goes
into specialty coffee and the nature of working with coffee equipment, but at
times we have to be very specific when accepting help from others so that we
can protect our product and the life of our equipment. It’s a balance of surrender,
patience and teaching when needed, where you let the Holy Spirit speak for you
in the most chaotic moments.
Q. What would being a part of the Catholic Maker community be important and
influential for your personal growth or faith journey?
We are excited to meet people from all over, meaning so far we’ve mostly been
popping up in Orange County and the OC diocese. We are looking forward to
serving the LA community and the diversity that it brings forth. Right now in our
faith journey, we have endured various judgement and scrutiny as a Mexican and
African American Catholic couple. Part of our message is to reveal to the
community who we are as Catholics and how God’s love is needed greatly in our
diverse communities who have been outcasted or criticized for whatever reason.
We are looking forward to bringing God’s love to all communities, the way Jesus
sat with every kind of person without judgement. It is our deepest craving to
serve the way Jesus did.
Q. What do you hope people experience or feel when they use or engage with
your Milagros Coffee?
We hope people see the truth about God’s love in our serving and sacrifice for
them. We hope they see what patience is, what listening is, what respecting
each other is – all through coffee and backed by faith. As people watch us
interact with our customers, we see how shocked they are that we can serve and
connect all at the same time. We want people to know the love and intention that
goes into each drink, and feel the Saint connection as they receive the
intercession of their Saint right before our eyes. We hope people choose to
engage with the prayer and scripture, then go out and tell others the God
Moments they had while visiting our pop-up. In this way, we pray that God’s love
is being made accessible in a very common and authentic way, so that people
within the faith will be more open to conversing with people of all backgrounds
and not be afraid to invite them into a relationship with God.
Q. Looking ahead, what are your hopes and dreams for your business, and
how do you envision it contributing to the Catholic community?
We hope Milagros Coffee Company will one day be a brick and mortar, where
people of all kinds can convene, hold events, host family fun days, be a place
where people can bring their family and friends who might have an inkling toward
the Catholic faith. We hope it is a doorway into entering into a relationship with
God for the first time, or feeling God’s presence and love in a real way that
cannot be denied. We pray that our company attracts outcasts of every kind,
letting them know that God loves them no matter what and they are always
welcome in His home – that everyone has a Home in God.
Q. Can you share a story about a meaningful interaction with a customer or
community member that reaffirmed your mission?
At an event we popped up at in Eagle Rock for Encounter Ministries, a woman ordered
a coffee and then grabbed a scripture verse from our condiments station. About an
hour later, she was prayed over for a physical ailment and received a full physical
healing. She shared in front of the crowd of about 60 people that her faith was
increased when she read the scripture verse she got from our pop-up, that it prepared
her to know that God wanted to heal her that day. The verse was John 1:50 “Jesus
answered and said to him, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the
fig tree? You will see greater things than this.” She was crying in her testimony and
holding up the scripture verse, reading it verbatim to the group. We were filled with
such faith and affirmation from this point on.
Q. What role do prayer and reflection play in your creative or business
process?
Our daily life is a practice of prayer and the Sacraments. We as a married couple pray
together, teach OCIA, volunteer at our parish, listen to the Hallow App, listen to homily
reflections, read scripture and do a Holy Hour each day in prayer. We go to Daily Mass
as much as we can and Adoration frequently, we also receive confession about once a
month. We find that serving the Lord is a huge way that we put our faith into action, and
we each require a lot of time in the week in prayer and study. We both are Cursillistas
and relive our weekend by volunteering in this ministry when we are able to. We also
completed the Encounter Ministries program and love to pray over one another. This
has been a super helpful way to pray as a couple. We both have full time jobs and yet
we have launched this company and it is catching fire. So to say we lean on prayer is
probably an understatement, but we know God is in charge and we trust Him with our
whole heart. Moreover, we hope to start a family whenever God blesses us with
children. Despite it has been 3 years already of waiting, we choose to spend our time
waiting, serving God and trust that He will bless us with a family in His time. So every
time we pop-up we offer up our time and labor for our future children.
Q. What upcoming projects or products are you most excited about, and why?
We are excited for 2025 as we plan to roll out a line of retail as well. Our swag is all
faith-based so we can’t wait for people to rep our logo with Our Lady of Guadalupe and
all our designs that reflect prayer, faith and fellowship. We plan to have t-shirts,
bookmarks, mugs, and more! We think this will be instrumental in evangelization and
attracting the youth.
Q. How do you balance your creative work with other aspects of your life, and
how does your faith help you maintain that balance?
We spend a ton of time in prayer and in adoration. Through prayer, we are able to hear
God tell us how to pivot, what to take out of our schedule, or what to review in case we
are overloaded. Basically, we are in a constant state of discernment. This helps us
navigate as a couple and put our love and relationship first, not losing sight of what is
most important. We are also able to tell if we are extending ourselves in ways that are
not God-led or surrounding ourselves with a community who is encouraging and
accepting of God’s love. Through this constant state of reflection and prayer, we are
able to constantly assess and witness where God moves and why. We surrender to
how He works and we do not resist how He guides us, but the only way to do this is to
constantly have a daily prayer routine and receive the Sacraments often. We also
attend a weekly Bible Study and fellowship throughout the year at our parish (Walking
with Purpose and TMIY), which provides us with the ongoing weekly nourishment and
community we need to get through some of our biggest struggles.
Q. What key lessons have you learned on your journey, and how have they
shaped your vision for the future?
Some key lessons we’ve learned:
God is in charge
Don’t force anything
Surrender when you feel like you are resisting or afraid
When afraid/confused/overwhelmed go to Adoration & Daily Mass
Have a morning Prayer routine of at least an hour
10 minutes of silence and listening to God daily is 100% needed.
Shaped us for our future:
We feel like this whole journey is preparing us to be parents. All the prayer and
juggling of life and schedules has been bringing us closer and closer as a couple.
We feel so much love for each other that we feel only God could have shown us
through this journey together.
Praying the rosary and listening to the Hallow App as a couple is one of our
favorite ways to pray (aside from going to Mass together and Daily Mass). We
love to discuss what we listen to and we are huge fans of Bishop Barron. All of
this to say, the things we read and listen to in the Catholic faith directly inspire
what we do with Milagros and we feel Him guiding our company into the most
unexpected places and communities. God is SO good!