This Idahoan wants Boiseans to connect offline. And she brews up special coffee
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- Itzel Chavez organizes Pace for Peace to fundraise locally
- At BNDRY, Chavez supports local artists by managing events and sponsorships.
- Chavez operates Café Mi Casita, catering Mexican coffee rooted in tradition.
Itzel Chavez, 28, dedicates a lot of her energy toward making Idaho better.
“Burley, born and raised!” she said enthusiastically during a phone interview.
The Meridian woman helped found Pace for Peace in Boise in 2024. The group puts on biannual 5K races to raise money for charities in foreign countries and other causes. In fall 2024, 200 people took part and raised $7,000 for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the spring, 300 runners raised $12,000 for local refugees. On Sept. 27, a race at Boise’s Veterans Memorial Park will raise money for the Qamar Foundation, which provides humanitarian aid in Afghanistan.
She also works on the finances for BNDRY, a creative agency and social club dedicated to helping people such as local artists who make Boise special, and to connecting Boiseans offline. That typically entails working on the accounting and finding sponsors for events, she said.
Marketing is a great way to “build hype,” and the group wanted to provide storytelling and events.
Plus, she started her own coffee cart, Café Mi Casita, which serves a traditional Mexican coffee drink, among other beverages. It’s a passion project for her.
“I’m here and I really don’t want to be complacent,” Chavez said. “I really want to grow.”
Chavez draws inspiration from her family. Her mother is from Jalisco, a western Mexican state, and her father is from Michoacán, which is just south of that. Her father has been resourceful, she said, starting his own auto-painting business in Burley to help support the family.
“I feel like I’ve been able to also take that on and just be like, alright, what are my resources? Let’s get creative. Let’s just move, let’s just do something, because why not?” she said.
Present activism, rooted in the past
She’s organizing this year’s Pace for Peace on Saturday Sept. 27, at Veterans Memorial Park. She’s part of a group that is running each Wednesday at the park until the day of the race to train. Afghanistan suffered a devastating earthquake on Aug. 31 that left over 2,000 people dead, though they chose it before the disaster.
At BNDRY, she’s also involved in events planning and operations. The group aims to showcase what defines Boise and provide marketing and connections for local artists.
“It’s easy to feel alone in a digital world,” Chavez said. “But there’s so many people doing awesome things… We try to curate events that we know the vibes are going to be good.”
For example, BNDRY has hosted a movie series where it brings in local artists whose work relates to the theme of the movie, she said.
Growing up in Burley, Chavez said, she dealt with racism and xenophobia at school. Some students’ parents wouldn’t let friends go to her side of the train tracks. Chavez would go home to her parents and tell them, only to be met with “What are you going to do about that?” Their response frustrated her at the time.
“Why should I have to change somebody else? Why do I have to do something different because somebody else is messed up?” Chavez recalled. “I still think that way, I don’t think that we should blame victims. But we should also think about how much power we have as an individual to change our circumstances.”
Her parents have instilled in her a philosophy of “let’s put our heads together,” when it comes to community building. She said she also got her entrepreneurial spirit from them.
In 2023, she started her coffee cart, showing up at the Nampa farmer’s market. She makes café de olla, a traditional drink made from brewing coffee with piloncillo (a type of sugar), cinnamon and other spices like anise and cloves together. It takes an hour to make, she said, so people don’t typically make it at home. The catering options start at $1.35 per person with a minimum 20 person order.
She was blown away by the support at markets, but now focuses the coffee cart on catering rather than attending in-person events.
“I wanted it to be specifically Mexican,” Chavez said. “It’s family. It’s just really important to me.”
This is the second in a series of stories related to Hispanic Heritage Month, Sept. 15-Oct. 15.
