We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christine Martinez-Espinoza a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Christine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

A success story is not a story if it doesn’t not have failures involved. So many people like for example the owner of KFC and Walt Disney failed in so many different areas, but that did not stop them from the success they finally acquired.

Failing is apart of succeeding and the sooner you accept it the closer you will be to a successful result. Well this did not work and that did not work, but at least you know going down those roads aren’t leading to success so you shift your efforts else where. You gain more and more traction towards the best road.

Some will say it was luck that got them there or an inheritance of some sort. Honestly the majority of success stories is based on perseverance. How far are you willing to push yourself to reach your results? How much energy and time are you willing to sacrifice?
My story of opening up a community center was not a flip of the switch type of project.

My success of a community center being opened is due to hours of my time away from my family, from my friends, sleepless nights, countless meetings with people that told us no sorry, rejection, moving from location to another and sacrificing vacations among a long list of other things.

However, the opening of our community center has everything to do with recognizing it takes a village to grow and groom this thing. I have gained trust and loyalty from people that know I will not stop and keep pushing for this to continue. I have gained families that volunteer and sacrifice there time and energy to our cause because they believe in the vision. This is not a self made story. I don’t believe you can be self made. It takes networking and bridging gaps to accomplish what you need.

So I have highlighted what it takes to be successful which is failing, perseverance, sacrifice, village of people are the ingredients of this story. But the main ingredient has been God. The word says if it is not Gods will it fail, but if it is Gods will you won’t be able to stop it or fight it off from happening. You will be fighting God himself.
This vision was birthed from being obedient to God and hearing his voice clearing of what he wanted from me and my husband to accomplish. God leads and we just follow suite.

I could go into every detail of money, people and countless disasters that I believe could have lead to me quitting, but we all have the capacity to succeed with or without money. But we most definitely do not have the capacity of achieving success without Gods will and permission.

I am not done and I know the people that stand with us are not done either. So yes we have achieved what most said we could never. Believe me when I say I have had people walk in like you and all these folks did this? Why yes we did cause we answer to a higher power. It makes me giggle when they are shocked.

My definition of success will be measured when I stand in front of my lord and savior and he tells me well done good and faithful servant.

We are not done yet.

Christine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Well my name is Christine and I am the CEO of Chapel Community Center Pasadena. Also none as CCCPTX. We are a nonprofit company and at this moment everyone is purely volunteering including myself. No one takes a salary at this moment. I am hoping with a few grants we can start creating jobs. During the pandemic we received a word from God to open a community center which has always been a dream of mine to do.
Of course we strategically planted this facility in historic North Pasadena.
I grew up on that side of town and always felt that side of town was forgotten and almost treated like the stepchild.
There is so many low income families struggling and single parent homes that need help with their children.

So what we have done is created an safe and open atmosphere for kids of all ages and adults to come and create and express themselves.

We offer free programs such as art classes, music classes and vocal lessons.

Soon to come will be conversational English classes, sewing classes, graphic design, WiFi cafe and the list is endless. If there is a need in the community and the efforts are not duplicated we will try our very best to accommodate that need.

We would love to one day own a building to then be able to create limitless programs for North Pasadena.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Well I am definitely not a rich person. I have a full time position I work while managing the center. My husband and I knew we wanted to create a nonprofit that was faith based so we decided to save our tax returns and sacrifice vacations to pay for our nonprofit status and join a program to steward us to create this center later on.
Truth we started this whole process with just 2,000 dollars. For some that sounds like a little and for others a lot. But for us that is a lot of money we could have used for a much needed vacation. However, we were willing to save and sacrifice for a period of time.
Best investment we ever made.
After that we began speaking to close family and friends to help partner with us and now it has started growing to total strangers loving what we are doing and wanting to partner and sponsor programs.

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What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

After reading a book on strategic prayer, we started meeting with city officials and school principals of schools to start figuring out what were needs in the city. We started off very small such as doing a small remodel of the Pasadena high school teachers lounge and back to school events. We partnered one time with the Pasadena police to pass out turkeys for thanksgiving.
A good name is one the best things you can have when your trying to grow and influence a community of strangers that don’t know you yet.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Chapelccptx
• Facebook: @chapelccptx

Image Credits
Pasadena chamber of commerce for our red ribbon cutting. Others are cellphone pictures