Cafecito Caliente Events

Cafecito Caliente and Title Sponsor Lake Trust Credit Union welcomes Dr. Lynn Muñoz to be the Keynote Speaker at the 3rd Annual Cafecito Caliente Awards to be held on Friday, September 26, 2025, in Lansing, Michigan. Dr. Muñoz is a trauma surgeon at University of Michigan Health–Sparrow Hospital, where she also serves as the Director of the Surgical ICU Fellowship Training Program.

Born in Los Angeles and raised in Puerto Rico, Dr. Lynn Damaris Muñoz is a board-certified Trauma and Critical Care Surgeon, educator, and community advocate. A former elite swimmer and water polo player who represented Puerto Rico in international competitions, she carried the lessons of perseverance into her medical journey. She earned her Master’s in Physiology, graduated from the University of Arizona College of Medicine, and completed her surgical residency at University of Michigan Health–Sparrow Hospital, where she now serves as Vice Chair of Surgery and Program Director for the Surgical Critical Care Fellowship.

Dr. Muñoz is deeply committed to mentorship, leadership, and advocacy. She has guided aspiring medical students, residents, and colleagues while championing unity and advancement within diverse communities. Above all, she is proud to be the wife of her husband, Michael, and the mother of her children, Viktorija and Alex.

The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website. Expected attendance is 240.

Cafecito Caliente would like to thank Davenport University, Consumers Credit Union, Shaheen Chevrolet of Lansing and the Lansing Lugnuts for their support in helping to make the 2025 Cafecito Awards a success!

Tickets: https://cafecitocaliente.com/store-2/2025-cafecito-awards/

Cafecito Caliente and Title Sponsor Lake Trust Credit Union are proud to announce Priscilla Bordayo as the 2025 Cafecito Caliente Latina of the Year. This award celebrates an extraordinary Latina who serves as a powerful advocate, inspiring leader, and passionate spokesperson for the advancement of Latinas and the broader Hispanic community.

Priscilla’s leadership is marked by resilience, compassion, and an unwavering dedication to creating opportunity and driving equity. Through her voice, vision, and actions, she uplifts others, champions inclusivity, and builds bridges that empower current and future generations.

Tickets: 2025 Cafecito Awards – Cafecito Caliente

Priscilla Bordayo is a nationally recognized sexual abuse survivor, advocate, and motivational speaker from Lansing, Michigan. Born in Texas and raised in “the mitten,” she became the first in her large family to graduate from college, earning a degree in elementary education from Southwestern Assemblies of God University. Her powerful story of overcoming incest and abuse has led her to speak before the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, the National Guard, law enforcement, schools, prisons, and community organizations across the country.

She played a key role in Michigan’s Clean Slate Bill, signed by Governor Whitmer, and continues to champion reform through her work as Manager of Partners at Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice (CSSJ). In this role, she is advancing initiatives like the Michigan Safer Act and Trauma Recovery Centers to expand victim support and rehabilitation services statewide. Priscilla’s advocacy has earned her wide recognition, including being named 2019 Woman of the Year, a “10 Over the Next 10” honoree (2020), Governor’s Service Award recipient (2022), and Neighborhood Impact Award winner (2023). She has been featured on TCT, Moms of Miracles, Driven by Women, Every Day Series, Every Dope Girl, 517 Magazine, and the cover of Women’s Lifestyle Magazine.

A woman of deep faith, Priscilla also serves as Worship and Events Director at Rivers of Life Church in Holt, Michigan. She leads with the conviction that worship is a weapon for breakthrough and uses her voice to help others encounter Jesus.

She is also the founder of Remarkable, a mentoring nonprofit for young adults, which she defines as:

RE – we all get a redo,

MARK – we are all marked with purpose,

ABLE – we are able to reach that mark.

When she’s not speaking or leading, Priscilla enjoys movies, sports, mentoring children, and indulging in her favorites—barbecue ribs with extra sauce and French fries. Through every role she carries, her mission remains the same: to bring healing, hope, and safety to others. Cafecito Caliente and Lake Trust Credit Union salute you Priscilla Bordayo as our 2025 Cafecito Caliente Latina of the Year.

The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website.

Tickets: https://cafecitocaliente.com/store-2/2025-cafecito-awards/

Cafecito Caliente and Title Sponsor Lake Trust Credit Union are proud to recognize Patty Rienstra for our 2025 Cafecito Caliente Educator of the Year Award for 2025. recognized teacher or education professional who demonstrates excellence, innovation, and exceptional commitment to their students and the profession, often serving as an ambassador and advocate for educational issues.

With almost 36 years of dedicated teaching at Waverly, she has built a career rooted in a strong work ethic and a love for mathematics—values passed down from her father. Throughout her tenure, I have taught Algebra, Geometry, and Algebra 2, while also serving on numerous committees and contributing as many volunteer hours outside the classroom as inside. Patty’s passion lies in building meaningful relationships with students, helping them grow not just academically but personally as they work toward their future goals. She brings creativity into the classroom through math songs and rhymes—yes, even the “annoying” ones—to make learning memorable and engaging.

The amount of praise for Patty Rienstra once she was nominated was such a high praise, Cafecito Caliente is proud to recognize her as our Cafecito Educator of the Year for 2025.

The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website.

Tickets: https://cafecitocaliente.com/store-2/2025-cafecito-awards/

Cafecito Caliente and Title Sponsor Lake Trust Credit Union are proud to announce Ramiro Garcia as the 2025 Rising Star of the Year. The award honors a young professional whose leadership, dedication, and commitment are already making a lasting impact in the Hispanic Latino community and beyond.

Born and raised in Lansing, Michigan, Ramiro earned his Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Central Michigan University. He began his career as Director of Constituent Relations in the Michigan House of Representatives, where he quickly recognized the lack of diversity among legislative staff, particularly the underrepresentation of Latinos. At the time, there were fewer than five Latino staffers in the entire House, a stark contrast to the state’s demographics. This realization fueled his drive to open doors for others and ensure Latino voices are present in decision-making spaces.

Ramiro went on to earn his Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, graduating at the top of his class by serving as commencement speaker. While in graduate school, he served as a Graduate Student Instructor, teaching public policy to undergraduates and mentoring the next generation of policy leaders. As a Policy Fellow with the Aspen Institute, he conducted extensive research on how to make the American insurance industry more inclusive. Through the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomacy Lab, he examined how disinformation spreads in conflict environments and developed strategies for how the U.S. government can respond.

His studies also took him into the field. In partnership with the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala, Ramiro contributed to restorative justice efforts following the Guatemalan genocide, using anthropology and genetic tracing to help uncover the truth of what happened. Closer to home, he worked on the Flint water crisis, administering psychometric assessments to children affected by lead exposure; this evidence later used in court to help families secure settlements.

Today, Ramiro serves as Chief of Staff to a State Representative, where he continues to champion inclusion, representation, and thoughtful policymaking. Inspired by those who came before him, including close family members who worked in the fields as migrant workers, he believes it is essential for Latinos to be “in the rooms where things are decided” about their communities. His work reflects a deep commitment to ensuring those decisions are informed by Latino voices, lived experiences, and a global understanding of how governments intersect.

Cafecito Caliente is honored to recognize Ramiro Garcia as our 2025 Rising Star of the Year for his dedication to public service, his trailblazing achievements, and his unwavering commitment to paving the way for future generations.

Cafecito Caliente and Title Sponsor Lake Trust Credit Union are proud to recognize Estrella Torrez for our Cafecito Caliente Culture & Arts Award for 2025. This award honors individuals or organizations for their significant contributions to culture and arts, often through their work in various fields such as music, visual arts, literature, and performance.

Estrella Torrez, PhD, is a community-based scholar focused on Latinx and Indigenous education. She is a professor at Michigan State University (MSU), primarily teaching in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities (RCAH). Dr. Torrez is also a core faculty member in MSU’s Chicano/Latino Studies and American Indian and Indigenous Studies programs.

Tickets: 2025 Cafecito Awards – Cafecito Caliente

As a child, Dr. Torrez attended schools for migrant farmworker children and began working alongside her family in the fields at the age of 12. She briefly taught within the migrant educational system and also worked for the Office of Migrant Education in Washington, D.C. She is a Gates Millennium Scholar, having received this prestigious award during its inaugural year.

In 2009, Dr. Torrez co-founded the Indigenous Youth Empowerment Program, an intergenerational community initiative that provides cultural and language-based programming. In 2013, she initiated the Nuestros Cuentos collaborative project with the College Assistance Migrant Program and the Lansing School District. This storytelling project brought together students from MSU’s RCAH and CAMP with 4th to 6th-grade Latinx youth in Lansing, and in 2017 students from the Lansing Community College. Nuestros Cuentos published four trilingual books.

For four years, she served as co-facilitator for the Lansing School District’s Latinx Leadership Program, which supports high school Latinx youth in grades 9 through 12.

From 2017 to 2021, she was co-chair of the Womxn of Color Initiatives at MSU, coordinating residencies for visiting authors, scholars, and artists. One notable initiative involved muralist Nanibah Chacon, who created the mural “Maawed Miijim: The One Who Provides” in Old Towne Lansing.

In 2023, Dr. Torrez’s work with Latinx and Indigenous communities was recognized when she received the Michigan State University Outreach and Engagement Distinguished Partnership Award for Community Engaged Creative Activity.

Cafecito Caliente is honored to recognize Ramiro Garcia as our 2025 Rising Star of the Year for his dedication to public service, his trailblazing achievements, and his unwavering commitment to paving the way for future generations.

The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website.

Tickets: https://cafecitocaliente.com/store-2/2025-cafecito-awards/

Sarita Martinez, is a Health Care Navigator for the Health and Resource Navigation Team at the Ingham County Health Department. Cafecito Caliente along with our Title Sponsor Lake Trust Credit Union recognizes her for our Cafecito Unsung Hero Award for 2025. 

When the Cafecito Awards were conceived, the mission of the Awards was to identify people that had not been recognized or celebrated. People that were heros to so many yet just one of the crowd in a room. They work with the underserved populations that most of us do not see daily, yet they might see them every hour and after they clock out. We have named this the Cafecito Unsung Hero Award. 

Born and raised in Lansing, Michigan. Daughter of Jose & Eva Martinez, members and founders of The Seventh Day Adventist first ‘Spanish’  Church of Lansing. Her vacations were spent doing Missionary work in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. We used a letter written on Sarita’s behalf to describe her. In my personal lifetime, I have met so many that have gone above and beyond, sacrificed even their personal lives to help other people navigate life a little easier. 

Sarita Maritnez is one of those rare individuals who leads with both her heart and her actions. She is highly motivated to help clients, understanding, and truly selfless in the way she approaches her work. She wears many hats serving the community with Health Care coverage, Food, Clothing, Shelter, education, and navigating through social security and secretary of state. Clients naturally gravitate toward Sarita because they sense her genuine care. In situations where clients feel vulnerable, Sarita makes all clients have a space of trust, and safety while navigating through their needs. Her actions and interactions with clients are a constant reminder of the power of kindness, patience and grace in our everyday interactions.

Cafecito Caliente is proud to recognize Sarita Martinez as our first Unsung Hero for the 2025 Cafecito Caliente Awards. Much thanks to Lake Trust Credit Union for supporting our  Hispanic Latino community!

The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website.

Tickets: https://cafecitocaliente.com/store-2/2025-cafecito-awards/

The 2025 Cafecito Caliente Award for Small Business of the Year goes to Sublime 360 LLC. Joel and Annette Gamez have strategically crafted a photo booth experience that not only has created fun for open houses, weddings and Quinceaneras, they have shown the corporate world that an event’s highlights can be more than dinner and awards. When Dave and Busters or Downtown Lansing Inc. marque event the “Red Ball Gala” called, Sublime 360 was there. 

They have taken an idea and created a family business. Joel is the face of Sublime 360, Annette handles the graphics and design. Rarely do you see a husband and wife team create a business and succeed. Many marriages are often destroyed by one significant other taking on a business and its demands. Joel and Annette have offered a great blueprint for how to make a family business work. 

Tickets: 2025 Cafecito Awards – Cafecito Caliente

In the Hispanic Latino community there is no shortage of people dreaming of starting a business. Although a current job, kids, life may offer some obstacles. But many times the “new” business pulls a marriage apart and the business fails. Cafecito applauds Joel and Annette and are inspired by their efforts to work together as they chase their dreams. The business itself is successful as they have added a larger 360 and have entered several colleges and universities and are in heavy demand most weekends. 

Lake Trust Credit Union is the 2025 Title Sponsor and business development consultation. Please keep them in mind for all of your business needs. 

The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website.

Tickets: https://cafecitocaliente.com/store-2/2025-cafecito-awards/

The Heart of the City Award is given in recognition of those who have made a significant contribution to the Mid-Michigan area through inspiration, spirit, and excellent leadership. They’re dreamers, they’re visionaries, developers, creators, leaders, and partners. The bottom line is they are the heart and soul of this community and represent the Hispanic Latino Community at its best. For the year of 2025, that person is Geronimo Lerma.

With inspiration from his parents, especially his Dad, he started Footprints of Michigan. He quit a safe and secure job to fill a need within the homeless community. Providing shoes and eventually any type of footwear. He taught himself how to use Canva which led to being able to create flyers, banners, business cards etc. This in turn produced some great content for social media. He pours his heart and soul into Footprints for the benefit of others.

Countless stories of Geronimo Lerma getting called for some odd sized shoes and he would find them and deliver them. This is his passion and his reason to push forward. All of this and he still has to do his dialysis 3 times a week meaning he is not always 100%. Not even on his good days is he 100% but he keeps pushing forward. For this, Cafecito Caliente will recognize Geronimo Lerma with a special Heart of the City Award at the Cafecito Awards.

The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website.

Tickets: https://cafecitocaliente.com/store-2/2025-cafecito-awards/

Community service involves helping others and improving your community. It emphasizes teamwork, kindness, and collaborative problem-solving. It focuses on improving the community you live in and the goal is to give your time and unlike jobs, it doesn’t aim for personal gain.

Cafecito Caliente will be recognizing Lupe Castillo as our Community Service person of the Year at the Cafecito Caliente Awards. Many of us know her through her work at Cristo Rey Church. Cafecito is not even sure what to write about her efforts to do the work of the Church as she has done pretty much everything. An amazing soul who gives and gives just to help others.

The lives Lupe Castillo has impacted could never be explained. People like Lupe do not always see the fruits of her labor. But please known Lupe, a community and countless lives have felt your presence as we do our part in recognizing you as our Community Service person of the Year!

The Cafecito Awards will take place Friday, September 26, 2025, beginning at 5:00pm at the Cadillac Room. More details can be found at the Cafecito Caliente website.

Tickets: https://cafecitocaliente.com/store-2/2025-cafecito-awards/