{"id":8585,"date":"2024-02-14T15:45:44","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T15:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/?p=8585"},"modified":"2024-02-14T15:45:44","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T15:45:44","slug":"sein-benavides-tries-to-unite-mid-michigan-latinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/14\/sein-benavides-tries-to-unite-mid-michigan-latinos\/","title":{"rendered":"Sein Benavides Tries to Unite Mid-Michigan Latinos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Sein Benavides<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By La Prensa Staff<\/em><\/p>\n

LANSING, MI, February 6, 2024: <\/em>Latino activist Sein Benavides seeks to unite the Latino community in the Lansing area with events and an online presence known as Cafecito Caliente. Now, the retired postal worker, 59, is delivering unity to the Latino community through an online network known as Cafecito Caliente.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoyed my 34 years. I\u2019d do it again if I had to. I had a good time, met a lot of good people, and had a lot of fun in its own way, he recalled of his overnight shift with the post office. \u201cI have two sons who actually work there now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benavides sees Cafecito Caliente<\/em> as an \u201conline community center\u201d where Latinos and those wishing to do business with the Latino community can come to learn about events, gatherings, gain contacts, and network. The website also organizes and hosts events such as Latino Day with the Lugnuts, Running La Vida Loca 5K race series, and an awards ceremony that helps kick off Hispanic Heritage Month.<\/p>\n

Benavides writes all the website\u2019s articles, offering event promotion, business networking, and celebrating the accomplishments of individual Latinos. Benavides is Latino Leadership Network and Latino Business Conexion of Michigan.<\/p>\n

He founded Cafecito Caliente in 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we could become somewhat of a virtual hub, almost like a Hispanic center, a Latino community center,\u201d he said of the website. \u201cIf I could connect, just become a really good networker, then I could learn where all the resources were and just basically point to them or connect people to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Benavides knew the growing Latino community would become a hot commodity in the marketplace and that he could make connections on Linked In. He used both to become the resource link for Lansing-area Latinos. That avocation, over time, became a vocation for him, after simply setting out to connect kids to scholarship opportunities, adults to job listings, and other types of help.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to combine technology with the old ways, try to reinvent the Latino community,\u201d he explained, noting that in-person networking and meeting other people is a key ingredient in the website\u2019s success. \u201cWe don\u2019t fight here. We all in the Lansing community pretty much get along. I\u2019m the connector who can connect that younger generation to the ideas of the old and try to bring back some of those traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benavides has big plans for 2024 and beyond. He\u2019s trying to honor Latino military veterans on his website. He hopes to do a Latino equivalent to Restaurant Week during Hispanic Heritage Month to build on promoting Latino-owned restaurants on his site with pictures of their food.<\/p>\n

He hopes to build on Latino Day with the Lugnuts by also bringing busloads of Latino leaders from every urban region in Michigan to the Detroit Tigers Fiesta de Tigre and hold a networking event alongside it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up in spaces where I didn\u2019t realize I would end up,\u201d he said. \u201cI even now run a Latino softball league.\u201d<\/p>\n

COVID and his connections provided an opportunity to make a big difference professionally. $4 million worth of government assistance had gone out to businesses suddenly struggling because of COVID-related closures and regulation\u2014but not one penny had reached ones that were Latino-owned and operated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe organization that handed out that funding recognized they had a huge problem,\u201d he said. \u201cAny of the underserved populations really didn\u2019t get that much money\u2014veterans or others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The organization found Benavides and his website through Google and hired him to help remedy the situation. Benavides ended up with a contract to identify qualified Latino businesses and get them to fill out paperwork necessary to obtain COVID relief funding. Through that process, he learned about and met with various business associations throughout the Lansing community who now see him as their \u201cgo-to guy\u201d when they need to reach Latino business leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been responsible for about $550,000 going back into Latino-owned businesses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Now the Cafecito Caliente website boasts over 200 Latino-owned businesses, restaurants, service professionals and even Tejano bands in an online directory. There are an estimated 12,000 to 14,000 Latinos who now live in greater Lansing.<\/p>\n

The father of three sons and a daughter recently \u201cfell into\u201d ownership of an iconic ice cream shop that\u2019s nearing its 75th<\/sup> anniversary in business, making it the oldest in the area. The shop was previously owned by a longtime friend he had met in the management program for a pizza chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe could not find a buyer. He had people meeting his price, but they wanted to tear it down because that part of the city needed some parking,\u201d he explained. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want to be the one who let the ice cream shop go.\u201d<\/p>\n

What started as Benavides joking that he would buy it, ironically, turned to reality.\u00a0 That purchase led to his hasty retirement from the post office and conversion to seasonal business owner. He promotes the ice cream shop using his self-taught social media skills, while also advising other business owners using what he\u2019s learned. He rarely works behind the counter, instead employing young people in what\u2019s become a quasi-workforce development program.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son told me I like to work with youth programs and now I have one again,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n

\"\"Benavides employs high school students at the shop, but also tries to teach them life skills as part of their employment. One recent Saturday featured a session with a local credit union leader teaching a financial literacy workshop. His incentive for the students to attend on their own time was the promise of a crisp, new $100 bill. More workshops are planned: one on how to buy a car and another on career choices, among others.<\/p>\n

In essence, he\u2019s teaching soft skills through soft-serve (ice cream). He’s now hoping to develop it into a formal youth program that a church or nonprofit will run.<\/p>\n

His parents are former migrant farm workers from south Texas who moved to mid-Michigan in 1955 seeking a better life. The couple stayed involved in the community through Lansing\u2019s Crista Rey church and community center. His father was also involved in the UAW while working for General Motors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey always just believed in helping people,\u201d said Benavides of his parents influence on him.<\/p>\n

Benavides ran youth programs for a decade at his church, which led to running afterschool Latino clubs at three Lansing high schools\u2014all of it as a volunteer. Little did he know where all of that experience would lead him in Lansing.<\/p>\n

Visit Cafecito Caliente online at cafecitocaliente.com<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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By La Prensa Staff LANSING, MI, February 6, 2024: Latino activist Sein Benavides seeks to unite the Latino community in the Lansing area with events and an online presence known as Cafecito Caliente. Now, the retired postal worker, 59, is delivering unity to the Latino community through an online network known as Cafecito Caliente. \u201cI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_rtcl_gb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[189],"class_list":["post-8585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-michigan"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6.jpg",300,331,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6.jpg",300,331,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6.jpg",300,331,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6-272x300.jpg",272,300,true],"large":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6.jpg",300,331,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6.jpg",300,331,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6.jpg",300,331,false],"rtcl-gallery":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6.jpg",300,331,false],"rtcl-thumbnail":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6-300x240.jpg",300,240,true],"rtcl-gallery-thumbnail":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6-150x105.jpg",150,105,true],"psacp-medium":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6.jpg",300,331,false],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Prensa6-45x45.jpg",45,45,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"LaPrensa Newspaper","author_link":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/author\/laprensa\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Michigan<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By La Prensa Staff LANSING, MI, February 6, 2024: Latino activist Sein Benavides seeks to unite the Latino community in the Lansing area with events and an online presence known as Cafecito Caliente. Now, the retired postal worker, 59, is delivering unity to the Latino community through an online network known as Cafecito Caliente. \u201cI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8590,"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8585\/revisions\/8590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8585"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laprensanewspaper.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=8585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}