Called to Lift the Next Generation

Summary

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Called (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)

Episode: Called to Lift the Next Generation

Guest: Joanne Chavez
Date: July 31, 2026
Host: Father Mike Schmitz

Episode Overview

In this episode, Fr. Mike Schmitz welcomes Joanne Chavez—former Senior VP & Chief Legal Officer at DTE Energy and founder of the Michigan Hispanic Collaborative—for an intimate, heartfelt conversation about generational resilience, faith as a lived experience, lifting up the next generation, and the obligation to serve. Joanne shares her story growing up as a sixth-generation Mexican American in Southwest Detroit, her professional journey, and most importantly, her calling to reach back and lift others. The discussion explores themes of availability, authentic faith, transforming adversity into purpose, and practical ways to serve the youth in our communities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Faith as Ordinary, Authentic Living

• Joanne emphasizes that her Catholicism is woven into daily life—not defined by extraordinary acts, but by everyday openness and goodness.
• “People should be able to see Christ when they see us. Right? …I try, especially now in my retirement, to really every day wake up and recognize how blessed I am, and that when I go out into the world, I share that energy with the world.” (Joanne, 04:59)
• Her approach: living faith outside the “four walls of the church”—action is integral to belief.

2. The Power of Saying “Yes”

• Joanne’s path has been shaped by availability, simply saying yes to opportunities and family needs—especially when challenged to take in her nieces and nephew after her sister’s death.
• “I just said yes, right. And everyone’s like, really? …You just say yes. There's no thinking about it… I just said yes, right. I think it was just what I was supposed to do.” (Joanne, 09:46)
• Fr. Mike connects this to a pattern seen in “extraordinary” servants: a willingness to be available is often the defining trait, not some innate talent or perfection.

3. Adversity, Resilience, and Family

• Joanne recounts painful family experiences: her sister’s struggle with addiction and early death, her father’s alcoholism, and the trauma of loss.
• She highlights choosing not to let trauma or resentment define her: “I am the woman I am today, not in spite of my family, but because of them. ... It gave me a fierceness, a fearlessness, a strength to accomplish all the things that I did.” (Joanne, 17:32)
• Letting go of resentment and processing pain allowed her to create space for gratitude and positive action: “I had to let that resentment go because I knew it was going to occupy space that would then not allow anything else to be in there. And that would be a tragedy.” (Joanne, 20:41)

4. Duty, Obligation, and Gratitude

• Joanne reframes duty as the natural outcome of gratitude: “The duty is an outcome of my gratitude.” (Joanne, 24:35)
• She rejects the cultural narrative that ‘obligation’ is burdensome, describing it as a commissioning that springs from blessing and thankfulness.

5. Transformative Community—St. Anne’s Parish

• St. Anne’s Basilica, more than a historic building, has been the anchor for generations of immigrants and for Joanne’s family.
• “It’s the place that we went in our darkest of moments and our best of moments… It’s where we celebrated our losses…the community is a group of caring people.” (Joanne, 43:10)
• She shares a moving family tradition: the act of walking on knees in gratitude to the Virgin of Guadalupe after her uncle returned safe from Vietnam, illustrating deep faith and communal solidarity (46:09).

6. Founding the Michigan Hispanic Collaborative: Serving Next Generation

• Identified gaps in education and opportunity among Latino youth in Detroit—particularly the lack of infrastructure to convert talent to opportunity.
• The collaborative starts supporting students from 9th grade and follows through early career, regardless of whether youth attend college.
• Core focus: relationships with caring adults, asset-based support, and practical tools (financial literacy, social capital, career readiness).
• “No child has too many people who love them. …We only believe in asset—there are no deficits.” (Joanne, 31:17 & 33:12)

7. Practical Ways to Get Involved

• Joanne encourages everyone—even outside Detroit and without Hispanic background—to help:
  1. Practice daily kindness: greet young people, express interest in their lives
  2. Donate money to organizations supporting youth
  3. Volunteer: mentor, donate clothing for job/internship readiness, bring whatever resource you have
• “Those little niceties every single person needs… Money, always time and kindness.” (Joanne, 36:04 & 38:03)

8. Wisdom for Serving Youth

• The biggest need for youth: consistent relationships with caring adults who both believe in them and provide practical life skills.
• Authenticity is critical: “They know right away if you really care or don’t… only do this work if you truly do care about the next generation. …Don’t do it half hearted.” (Joanne, 41:32)

9. Legacy, Calling, & Living for Others

• Joanne reflects on her new chapter post-executive life:
  • She does not “miss her big job,” because her current work is what God “put me on this earth” to do.
  • Her lived experience, both pain and privilege, was clearly preparation to “bring it back to these kids.”
• “Talent is universal. We all have incredible talent and gifts. The real question is, how do we use it?” (Joanne, 49:54)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the ordinary nature of faith and calling:

“There’s nothing special about me. I’m just an ordinary woman who’s been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and gifts.”
— Joanne Chavez (08:08)

On duty as gratitude:

“The duty is an outcome of my gratitude.”
— Joanne Chavez (24:35)

On authentic service to the next generation:

“You have to care about these kids, because no child has too many people who love them.”
— Joanne Chavez (31:17)

On choosing love over resentment:

“I am the woman I am today, not in spite of my family, but because of them. … It gave me a fierceness, a fearlessness, a strength to accomplish all the things that I did.”
— Joanne Chavez (17:32)

On excellence:

“We have to constantly pursue excellence… for me, the only way you can accomplish that is with heart… there’s no such thing as a small job or a bad job. …It enables us to reframe and always be our best.”
— Joanne Chavez (26:50)

On being called:

“I don’t think God has sent a bolt of lightning to me. It’s in little ways, right. It’s in all the people he sends to ask me so that I can say yes.”
— Joanne Chavez (50:12)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:21 – St. Anne’s as a home for immigrants and foundation for faith
• 09:46 – Joanne’s “yes” to adopting her nieces and nephew
• 15:37 – Personal family hardships and choosing resilience
• 20:41 – Letting go of resentment to make space for gratitude
• 24:35 – Duty as an outcome of gratitude
• 27:59 – Founding the Michigan Hispanic Collaborative and educational mission
• 32:43 – Key needs for youth: caring adults, life skills, asset-based approach
• 36:04 – Practical ways for listeners to support youth: kindness, money, time
• 41:32 – On authentic care for young people and not serving half-heartedly
• 43:10 – St. Anne’s parish: community, sanctuary, and family story
• 46:09 – Family act of gratitude upon uncle’s safe return from Vietnam
• 49:22 – Joanne’s reflection on being “called” and using gifts post-retirement
• 52:52 – Returning “back home”—life’s journey coming full circle

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Final Insights

The episode beautifully illustrates that real, impactful service isn’t reserved for “extraordinary” people. Instead, it belongs to those who live their faith authentically, say yes to God’s opportunities (big or small), and relentlessly pour their heart into service—especially by lifting up the next generation. Whether you’re an executive, a parent, or an ordinary parishioner, your lived experiences and daily choices to love, welcome, and build up others create lasting impact. As Joanne says, “Talent is universal… the real question is, how do we use it?”

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Transcript

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Coming up in today's episode of Called

[Joanne Chavez]

do you miss your big job? You know, I was a C suite executive, one of six Latinas in the country. I don't because the work I'm doing, I think it's why he put me on this earth. It's why I was trained. It was why I stayed alive. You have to care about these kids because no child has too many people who love them. The duty is an outcome of my gratitude.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and welcome welcome to Called a podcast from the Catholic Initiative and produced in partnership with Ascension. This podcast exists to share stories of courage, mercy and hope that call each of us from belief into action as Christ teaches us in the gospel of Matthew 25. He said, Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. In Proverbs 22:6, it tells us that to train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it. So what does it mean to be the first in your family to make it and to turn that success into a calling to lift up the next generation? We're joined today by Joanne Chavez. Before retiring this year, Joanne Chavez was the Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at DTE Inner Energy. She's also the founder and President and CEO of the Michigan Hispanic Collaborative. She's a sixth generation Mexican American, raised in Southwest Detroit and she earned both her business degree and her law degree from the University of Notre Dame. Joanne's story runs through St. Anne de Detroit, the parish where her grandmother prayed and the spiritual home that anchored generations of her family and the Hispanic community of Southwest Detroit. Joanne, welcome to called oh, thank you

[Joanne Chavez]

so much for having me today. What an honor and a blessing.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Well, it is an honor for me and a great blessing for all of us. We talked about before we started recording this and just I'm so grateful not only for, well, for all you've done in your life, just being a blessing to people around you and blessing far reaching, but also for making the time today to is really sacrificing your time to be able to have this conversation which I'm really looking forward to having not only to hear about your experience at St. Anne's which is. We'll talk about that in a second. But also how the Lord has, as we said in the intro, how the Lord has, has just called you in a very particular way to make an impact in this generation that helps the next generation. So I just really looking forward to this conversation.

[Joanne Chavez]

Great. Me, too.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

So, Joanne, you grew up in the St. Ann's neighborhood, which is, for those people who don't know, it's the flagship project of the Catholic initiative. So St. Anne's was founded in 1701. It's older than the city of Detroit itself. It's one of the. I think it's the second oldest continuously operating parishes in America. I think the only one that's older is in St. Augustine, Florida, the St. Anne's so here's the question for you is what does it mean for you that through every wave of immigration, so the French coming to Detroit, the Irish, and now Hispanic people coming to Detroit. What's it mean to you that St. Anne's has always been a home for newcomers?

[Joanne Chavez]

I think it means that God wants us all to be welcomed and that we have held our arms open right there. And for those of you who don't realize this, Detroit, several blocks away, the original Ambassador Bridge, which went between the US And Canada, was right there. So when you think about immigration, you're thinking, he said, bring me your poor. Bring me everyone. And so I just feel like St. Anne's has been that beacon. And I always think of. I tell people I am extremely spiritual. I'm not sure everyone would say that there's anything special about my Catholicism, but what I do know is that the life that he's given me, that started where my parents got married at St. Anne's through today and through burying both my parents at St. Anne's has enabled me to just do his work. And I didn't even know it. I don't know if you always realize that. Right. What do they say? We make plans and God laughs. You know, I think I stopped planning. Right. I just have gone with what I am supposed to do. Yeah.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Well, I love that you're saying that. It seems like you're living out your faith is just normal. I guess you'd say it like that. It's kind of like a. Maybe like an ordinary way of living out your relationship with the Lord and living out your faith. Is that what, how you describe it?

[Joanne Chavez]

Yes. Yeah. I would say again, you know, my husband says the rosary every day and goes to Mass, you know, four times a week. And I say, let's not compete about which one of us is more Catholic or which one of us is going first, because I know it's me. But I will be in heaven and I'll pull you up, honey. But I think that I just try to live it every day because here, what's most important to me is this authenticism about just being good. That's it. People should be able to see Christ when they see us. Right. And it doesn't mean every day we're perfect, we're imperfect humans. But I try, especially now in my retirement, to really every day wake up and recognize how blessed I am, and that when I go out into the world, I share that energy with the world. And. And that's the authentic part of my Catholicism. So I live it every day. I'm not trying to contrive something artificially.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Well, that makes sense. And that's actually the heart of this podcast, which is just trying to say, okay, so our faith is not simply meant to be believed, but it's something to be lived. And that's what it sounds like you're describing, is if I kept my faith, a relationship with God to be the four walls of the church, then there would be something, something really significant that would be. That would be missing.

[Joanne Chavez]

Absolutely. So, again, we're humans, not going to say, you know, I'm always the best human, but I try and let people say, live it. Right. And I think that's important, too. You know, we just. My husband and I just finished watching the Chosen, and to see Jesus as a man. Right. I think that was. Gosh, it just really warmed my heart and reminded me how to wake up every day even more. I don't know. It just inspired me.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah. Well, I think there's something. I think there's something about hearing someone's story, like, even take hearing Jesus, hearing about Jesus, whether that's, you know, through reading the Gospels or that's, you know, hearing preachers or priests talk about Jesus or teachers talk about Jesus, and the way that they depict Jesus in the Chosen is so. And also the apostles, right? Because it's called the Chosen. It's about those who are chosen, is that it's, oh, these are real people. And I think sometimes, like when it comes to this podcast or when it comes to other stories about people who are doing something extraordinary, typically. Well, one of the temptations for many of us is to disqualify ourselves and say, well, that's that person who is very extraordinary, as opposed to me, who's just ordinary. And I think I like this, Jan, because what you're leading off with is, okay, here's how I see myself. I see myself as an ordinary person, an ordinary woman, an ordinary Catholic. And I think that's so important for everyone listening, because most of us, I think if we're going to be Honest, we don't see ourselves as extraordinary. We see ourselves as ordinary or maybe even subordinary, if that's possible.

[Joanne Chavez]

Absolutely agree with that. In fact, you know, I often speak on a number of topics, but I always remind everyone there's nothing special about me. I'm just an ordinary woman who's been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and gifts.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah. What do you think is, in your experience, that difference between how you're seeing it as. No, I'm just. I'm an ordinary person just responding to opportunity versus what people would see. What do people think they see when they hear about your life or when they see the things you've done versus you're saying, no, no, this is actually the behind the scenes. This is what reality is like.

[Joanne Chavez]

Yeah. I'm not sure everyone fully appreciates it. Right. And I think in order at times to appreciate that distinction, which is so important, is to. You have to have lived it. You have to have gone along the journey. So I don't begrudge anyone who says, no, no, you've had all these great extreme opportunities and, you know, you haven't walked in my shoes. Right. And, you know, I'll share with you. My sister was a drug addict and alcoholic and she died in 2015. She was mid-40s. And, you know, but for the, you know, grace of God go I. And that's what I. That's why I say I am just ordinary. Why? Why something special at that moment? There was my dad who'd already died, my sister who died, my uncle died of a heroin overdose. And then you say, why me, Lord? Why me? But instead of questioning it anymore, I just say, do with me what you need me to do. And, you know, I find that I've just said yes. Even with this. I laugh because I always say yes to, you know, when important people call me, I always say yes. And then later thinking, oh, my gosh, I hope I don't, you know, mess this up. I hope I do, you know, a good job. And I know I'm supposed to say yes, right? When. When God brought me my two nieces and nephew, I just said yes, right? And everyone's like, really? I was single. I had just become a partner. I just built a house, and I got three kids, four, five and six. You just say yes. There's no thinking about it, Right? And that's why that when I talk about the. Being the authentic and ordinary Catholic, I didn't like, I didn't even pray hard about it. I just said yes, right. I think it was Just what I was supposed to do.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Well, you know, it's funny that you say that, because I think I've reflected on this as well, I think a bit. And one of the things that it seems like distinguishes people who. I think this might have even been one of our first conversations with Father John Ricardo. One of the things that distinguishes people who are like, maybe like you in that sense of someone who finds themselves in a position where I'm doing something that others would consider extraordinary. We'll say that. And the key characteristic or the key thing that they would have about them is maybe something like this, not necessarily massive talent, maybe not necessarily a larger heart for more love or maybe wisdom or insight or whatever the thing is, but is just availability. And that one word, he keeps coming back again and again when on this podcast, it seems like those people who are doing what we would consider extraordinary things, which I consider what you've done in your life, Joanne, extraordinary is okay, I'll be available. Like you said, another way to say it is, I just said yes, here's an opportunity, here's a need. I'll say yes. Can you comment on that a little bit?

[Joanne Chavez]

Yeah, that's absolutely what I believe. But I think it's maybe I, you know, I said, I realized, I said I didn't pray about it, but I've spent my whole life, I didn't share this before, but I have been in Catholic school since I was in third grade. And so I've been in Catholic school all the way, high school, college, and law school. So those values are just second nature to me. They're ingrained. Right. And, and then my family values, where you always just say yes to your family, those were instilled in me too, you know, since birth, so forever. And so I just think that these values, if they truly live in you, this goes back to where we just, we started. If they live in you and you truly believe it, saying yes is ordinary. And I think that's the shift. Right. Saying yes is ordinary. There's nothing extraordinary. This is at the core who I am.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

You know, you mentioned your family being a pretty significant or very, not relatively, but very significant force in that formation of your heart, formation of your, even your lens at life, but also in recognizing that, I think if this is true, you're the first. So you sixth generation Hispanic American, right?

[Joanne Chavez]

Yes. Yep.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

And the first to go to college,

[Joanne Chavez]

first to go to high school, finish high school, and the first to go to college and then the first to go to law school. So, you know, people forget you know, when you. My mom's family. So my paternal, my maternal side is the ones that are sixth generation American, Hispanic American. And they were in southern Texas by the Rio Grande Valley. Right. And the border moved on them. Right. So but for the Treaty of Hidalgo, we would be just Mexicans, not Mexican Americans. Right. And. And then they moved to Michigan in, at the beginning of the industrial age when Henry Ford was up here starting to sit, create jobs and build cars. They thought this is an opportunity and so they came and. But here's the interesting component. They didn't get to finish school. None of these people, they didn't finish school. They worked hard, they loved their families, they supported the broader family, but they didn't finish their education. And I do think that was part of the driving force for both my parents, but especially my dad, you know, he had two girls, probably wanted a boy. You know, he was Latino and. But he raised me to believe in myself. Right. And to believe in the values of our faith. Right. And I will tell you, it's only faith that has gotten. Gotten me through my darkest of moments. Right. I tell everyone I had a choice many times to crawl under a rock and just want to die, but instead I choose life. And I choose life every day and I fight for it.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you saying that. Not only here's your father who is still instilling this in you, but also your decision to take that up and to even how you said to choose life and to fight for it. What are some of the ways that you'd say, like, oh, no, this is what I mean, if you don't mind, I don't want to pry, but this is an interview, this is a conversation where I get to ask questions. But what are some of those ways that you'd say, like, oh, no, this is why. Here's an example of where I had to fight for this?

[Joanne Chavez]

Yeah. I mean, my dad was an alcoholic. When I was 16, I had to go get, pick him up from somewhere in Detroit because, you know, he had a dui. Right. And that could have been, that could have scarred me and could have permanently shifted everything. Right. And that just never got easier. Or when my sister, who was a drug addict would call and say, I need $1,000 and I would drive, I'd already been working, drive and meet her somewhere not very great and give her $1,000 knowing that it wasn't going to go to anything good, but also knowing that I couldn't fix the problem for her. We had tried, we had done all kinds of things, whatever we could. So all I could do was pray and give her a little bit of what I had, and that was it. Each of those times could have been a significant obstacle in my life, in. In my professional life, in my personal life. And I refused to let myself stay in bed and cry. Right. It doesn't mean I don't cry still. I tell everyone I said, that's set for my car. I'm able to compartmentalize it. But when I get into the world where the world needs me or where I was required to be professionally, game on. Right. And that's how I live. And I know I probably didn't know it at the moment or in the moment, but I know now that he gave me. That he gave me this strength that I've not seen in most of my family ever. Any one of them. There's no one I can point to who had that internal fortitude to survive. Right.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah.

[Joanne Chavez]

And survive positively. Right. People survive, often trauma. But I choose life, and I choose, you know, our, you know, a good life, Jesus's life, you know, and following that, his word. And I think that's what's perhaps the most important thing. Right. I didn't allow it. I tell everyone I am the woman I am today, not in spite of my family, but because of them. He. That was God's gift to me. That was his gift. It gave me a fierceness, a fearlessness, a strength to accomplish all the things that I did. And the reason I had to accomplish them was because he had other plans. I had to take in those three little kids. I had to give them a lot. They needed tons. They were 4, 5, and 6. They needed so much more than love. They needed professional help. They needed a lot. And then even the work I do in the Hispanic community, it is my repayment. Right. I owe. It's an obligation. I was raised to believe that we had to give back and that I could never forget where I came from. And I just view, I've been given these gifts. How do I not repay them?

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah. Well, can I ask you a question about that? Because I'm so grateful you said this. One of the. Also. Also, it seems like there's a. There's. I don't want to project this on you, but it seems like there's this interior freedom as well. Here's what I mean. I've come across people more and more recently who would say that because my family wasn't perfect. Here's the resentment that has taken hold of my heart. So, I mean, obviously no family is perfect. No parents are perfect. But I heard you in almost the same breath, I mean, in two subsequent breaths, talking about how, like, oh, my father formed me in this way that you still live now, and also saying, also, I had to pick him up across town because he was an alcoholic and couldn't drive. And I hear people more and more saying, well, I have this issue now because my parents did such and such. Or I have this issue now because here's what I didn't get. So this resentment that's taken hold of their hearts, and yet what I hear in you is a freedom from resentment. And just that sense of, I will acknowledge the bad, like, I'll acknowledge the reality that was so difficult, but I'm not going to let that define me. Was there ever a time where you chose to not let the negative part or the hard part define how you would see the world?

[Joanne Chavez]

I think it's probably periodically just gotten easier and easier, perhaps the older I have become. Now I'm in my 60s, and I think you see the world in a completely different way. But I think as I lost each of my parents, as I lost my sister, you know, my core central family, I had to let that resentment go because I knew it was going to occupy space that would then not allow anything else to be in there. And that would be a tragedy. Right. And so, I mean, even I remember visiting my sister as she was on her deathbed, and I told her, and I'll cry, I was going to raise our kids for both of us. Right. I didn't say, you know, I didn't get mad and say, how did you do this? You know, why did you do this? Instead, I'm going to do it for both of us. When I gain, you know, any sort of recognition for any of the work I do, I remind the world that I do this for my family.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah.

[Joanne Chavez]

Right. I do it for them. And so I think, you know, throughout time, you could have carried things, and I'm sure I could have been better at certain stages in life, but the older I became, the more I realized that I would have to leave that behind. Right. And let's be honest. Yeah. That isn't. And I say this now as an older Catholic, that didn't just happen because I was something special. It happened because God gave me that gift. Right. Not everyone's blessed with that, or not everyone sees that blessing, and I am so grateful that I was able to do that, because now I can convert that pain, that hurt into remarkable things. Right. I'm serving 2,000 kids this fall, I'm going to sit with 2,000 kids. Wow.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Well, then, you know, two words that I mentioned, availability being one of them, but it sounds like another one of the words that you've mentioned is, well, I have an obligation, like that sense of duty. I have a. Yeah, I guess those two words, obligation and duty, which maybe again, in our culture, in our country, or wherever we're at right now in life, sometimes people can see those as bad words or as negative words, dirty words, obligation or duty. And yet it sounds like you see them as, no, I've been commissioned. Like, I've been given an obligation. I've been given a duty, and I want to rise to that challenge again. I don't want to project that on you, but can you say something about the role of how you see obligation, how you see duty, that again, doesn't cause you to resent, but causes you to rise.

[Joanne Chavez]

Yeah. I have no resentment about an obligation or duty whatsoever. But as I have reflected on. And I try to have that gratitude daily. Not always good at it, but I try. And if you just look at your life, how do you not view that obligation and that duty as positive? How blessed am I, honestly? Right. The fact that I am 62 and still alive compared to my sister, my father, my uncle, that on its face is a blessing. Right? So I really don't know how to say it, but you're absolutely correct. I have viewed this as something so positive because I do look at my life and say, wow, how am I sitting here today? I was just with some of the young Latinas yesterday. There were 25 of them, and they're young. And they asked me, you know, do you believe? You know, what do you think about all that you've accomplished? And I still say, I still pinch myself because I'm still this little girl from southwest Detroit whose parents didn't finish high school and whose dad died in her fort, his 40s, whose uncle died in his 40s, whose sister died in her 40s from just hard lives. Right. And how can I not be blessed? Right? And so this is what I tell them, you know, I am great. It's a gratitude, maybe, as opposed to obligation. I should shift it and say that the duty is an outcome of my gratitude.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

That meant that makes sense. One of my favorite saints is Saint Jose Maria Escriva. You know, he has his books, the Way, the Furrow, the Forge, which are just little snippets, you know, little sayings. And one of the sayings that just struck me was he said something like, do your duty, but put your heart. But when doing your duty, put your heart into it. It helps. And I just think, like a lot of us stop at the do your duty. Like, oh, gosh, here's my obligation, here's my duty, here's my. What I have to do. But then St. Jose Maria saying, put your heart into it. And that's what I hear that gratitude part of. I've been given an opportunity, not just a duty. I've been given a chance to make a difference, to help people. Like you even said, the fact that you're still alive where others aren't is, as you said, on its face, a reason to be grateful.

[Joanne Chavez]

Absolutely. You know, it's funny. I say yes, and I'm going to say this. I say yes often to everybody who asks of me. Right. And I didn't realize how much this conversation would help me perhaps better formulate my thoughts regarding just everything I do. Because I just do it right. I live right. And I do it, and I do it well the same way that he said, you know, do it with faith, do it with happiness. You know, I believe that anything you touch you have to do with excellence. And it doesn't matter if it's the duty or if it's an obligation. You have to. And that means you have to give it the heart. You have to.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah, that's. That's so important. Yeah. I love. Okay, let me. I want to. I want to just highlight that for one moment or bracket it, because I think it's really good. It's. Excellence would involve. Always involves a lot of things, but one of the things that it involves is putting your heart into it. Would you say that was part of what you just said?

[Joanne Chavez]

Absolutely. Because when I say relentless or pursuit, you know, we have to follow the relentless pursuit of excellence. I tell this to every intern that's ever worked for me. Any young person who meets me and works with me knows that that is our mantra. We have to constantly pursue excellence. Yes, we have to. And we have to do that with everything we do and everything we touch. And I think for me, the only way you can accomplish that is with heart, you know, because there's no. No such thing as a small job or a bad job. Right, right, right. It's the way we look at it. It's the way we feel it. Right. So it enables us to reframe and. And always be our best. Always bring that gratitude along with us.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

It's not always what we do, but it's how we do it most critically.

[Joanne Chavez]

Yes.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah. Well, you. Okay. I'm not switching gears entirely, but you had mentioned some of the work of the Michigan Hispanic Collaborative. Could you tell us a little bit about the formation of that and what it does right now?

[Joanne Chavez]

Yeah. So, you know, in. Over the years, you know, I've always wanted to do things and give back to the community, but over time, God gave me other gifts. He gave me three little kids and a big job. Right. And a lot of great things. So I said, you know, I didn't always have the time, but as the my kids got older, I found myself knowing that I then had capacity to do just something more. And I remember reading an economics article by someone, I don't remember who wrote it, saying that if we're going to help the Latino community, we have to do it ourselves. We can't wait for someone else to do it. And so we got a group of professional Latinos in town and we started just talking about it. And it was as I still had a lot of big work to do at my company, but this became the part that I could fill in a little as the kids were in high school and they didn't want me to spend as much time with them as most high schoolers. Yes, absolutely. And so I just started filling it, really thinking about what could that look like. And so a group of us came together and we decided that we were going to focus on education. We started as a college access College success program. And then as the world continued to revolve around us. Right. And this is from a bipartisan perspective, and began forgetting some of our kids in the cities, some of our most underserved youth, I thought this is where we need to even double down on. We need to invest more. We must invest more. And so we believe that talent is universal, but that the infrastructure to convert that talent into opportunity is not. And so now we have a very comprehensive program that starts with freshmen in high school and goes all the way through early career. And it goes through early career whether you go to college or not. And our goal is to provide that infrastructure to them so that they can make informed decisions as they progress in the world, and they can learn to navigate the complex world that we all live in and convert negativity into something of an asset. Again, we only believe in asset. There are no deficits. None of us have deficits. We're asset based. And then help them be their best. And by helping them be their best, we believe we can reduce poverty. So 40% of the Latinos in the city of Detroit are under the poverty line. That's a lot of people who have housing, food, and other insecurities. And so we're working with those young people and through a robust curriculum and a lot of adults who must care. Right? We talked about excellence. Again, with my adults saying that if you're going to be in the room and you view this as a job, then you shouldn't be with us on this journey. You have to bring your heart, you have to care about these kids, because no child has too many people who love them. And that's what we're doing. And we're bringing so much around them, and we know that this will have a huge impact. And so at one point, we coined the phrase, when you empower one Latino and you educate them, you empower a community. Whole community, and a whole community. I mean, I think about me, little me, right? I was a head start kid, right? Ending up at Notre Dame doing all these things. And now I'm able to touch thousands upon thousands of young people.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

When you meet with, say you're starting to work with a freshman and you're working again all through high school into early, that work or college, whatever, what do you find is the key need? Is the key need. Academic help is the key need. Okay, we have tough home situations. Is the key need. Financial. Maybe it's a combination, a constellation of all those things, but what do you find is one of the bigger obstacles that is facing those youth that you get to address with the Michigan Hispanic Collaborative?

[Joanne Chavez]

I think it is bringing caring adults to them and giving them a backpack filled with tools. Again, we don't make the decisions for them, but we're teaching them how to make decisions, right? We're giving them financial literacy. We're giving them. We're teaching them how to deploy social capital, right? We're teaching. We're reminding them that they have talent and that we believe in them. And sometimes that's all they need. You know, I've done a lot of work with youth over the years, and everyone tries to have excellent programs. And while I will always pursue excellence, the foundational tool is the relationship with the adults in their lives. Are people listening? Are people caring? Are people helping them to develop different resources and put tools in their own toolboxes? And I think that's what's at the core, right? And people, they are spreading without talking about Catholicism. We're living it. How are we showing that we love them? How we. How are we showing that we care for them every day and every touch, no matter who on the team they're talking to. And that's the focus. It's as basic as that. I mean, we have a whole curriculum that we're giving them a lot of things. And it's not the academics, it's reminding the caring adults why they are in that room with them. And I don't begrudge any families at home or any parents. We've all gone through it, but now we're that in loco parenti. Right. We're going to be there with them at that space to give them those tools that maybe their parents, for a whole host of reasons, can't. Maybe they're working a lot. Maybe they're taking care of the other kids. Maybe they're more worried about where we're going to live and what we're going to eat. So we have that freedom to give them everything else.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Right. Well, ask you a question about that. You mentioned that this critical ingredient of this is a relationship with caring adults. Again, people who are listening to this virtually, probably the vast majority are adults and they're listening to this. They are. You know, you probably fall into the category of caring adults. How, how does someone like, how would they get involved with something like the Michigan Hispanic Collaborative or how, how. Or even if, say they're, they're outside of Detroit or say, maybe their background is, is not Latino, but to be able to say, but I am an adult and I do care and I do care about the next generation. Joanne, what would you say is like, here's a step for them to be that, to develop a relationship with a young person as that caring adult? If that. I don't know if that's too vague

[Joanne Chavez]

of a question, but no, it's, it's a big question, but I think there are several immediate ways. So with all of the, you know, vision that I have for the young people, I also am a pragmatic person. I like to make sure I'm action oriented. Right. To what we said at the very beginning. I have to live this right.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah.

[Joanne Chavez]

So it starts with any young person you encounter. Take a minute, ask them about what they're doing. Ask them, you know, what they're thinking, how they're doing. Right. And you may not fix everything, but you'd be amazed at the number of resources that we all carry and likely every one of your listeners carry. Right. And how do I bring resources to that young person? That's easy. Saying hello, saying, you know, what can I do for you? How can I get to know you more? How was your day? Thank you. For working here. Thank you for doing this. Those little niceties every single person needs, right? So I think it's as basic as that. You want to get more complicated. The power of the checkbook, Right? And I say this because I don't just donate my time. I give money. And I don't just give money to the Michigan Hispanic Collaborative. There's a number of organizations that I care about because they do that important work that maybe I haven't had time to be fully associated with. And then the third component is to find an organization within your. Your community that focuses on youth development. Right. And it may just be. We have a closet we call Futuro Fit. Our kids didn't have the right clothes to wear to job interviews. Even my kids in college, right. They didn't have the right clothes to wear to a job fair. And so we take gently used clothes because now most professionals aren't wearing them anymore. And so. And. And it makes these kids feel like a million bucks, right? We make sure they're clean and steamed and tailored so that they can look their best and then feel their best. So I think the three easy ways. Money, always time and kindness.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah, basic kindness. And as you're saying, basic. I mean, this is how we started a conversation, by saying, this is ordinary stuff, but it's funny that you mentioned that. So my whole priesthood, I've been assigned to working with youth and college students. So I always say that my entire time, same kids.

[Joanne Chavez]

I do. Yeah, exactly.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

It's six grade through medical school is where I land there, or middle school to medical school. And yet that sense of, like you say, just take a time, take a moment, and some kind of engagement. I was speaking with a former collegiate missionary last week, and she was saying, oh, gosh, here's some high schoolers. There are high schoolers around us. She said, I don't know why high schoolers are so intimidating. Like adolescent teenagers are so intimidating. And I think. I thought. I have thought the same thing. I have been in that place where we walk in, we host a retreat or something where all these. The adult walks into the room of high schoolers. And I just think it's like being thrown back into high school yourself, where you just feel so self conscious and so will I be rejected by these teens. And yet the people like you, that and people who you work with, who do it well, just get past that and realize, okay, I may feel uncomfortable, I may feel like I'm being thrown back into high school, but they need my attention. Even just a brief eye Contact, how are you? With a follow up of some sort. It's so easy, but it's so easy to be disqualified or feel disqualified.

[Joanne Chavez]

Yeah. It's interesting. These young girls I was with just yesterday, 24 of them, and they were going to present to us adults and they were nervous and I had to remind them, I'm nervous too. Right. I had to speak to them at the very beginning. And I always think, I'm 62, I have so little in common anymore with really young people. But I said, you have to just move past that. It's a state of mind. I said, we breathe, some of us pray, some of us just think. And you just go, right. And I tell everyone, working with our young people, you know, we know more about what we're doing than they know, and they know more about being a teenager than we know. So we have to learn from one another. And if we go into the room with a humble attitude, with an attitude that I'm not the master of this classroom rather than I'm a learner in this classroom, just like the young people are, then it just breaks down all the barriers.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah.

[Joanne Chavez]

Right. And. And they know right away if you really care or don't. So if you're in a bad mood and you don't really want to talk to a kid, don't fake it. Because they know they can see right through us. Right. You know this. They see right through us. Yeah. And they call. And they'll probably call us out on it. Right. Like, hey, you don't really care about me. Why are you asking me about me? So just make sure you go into it with such authentic love and respect. Right. And I would argue only do this work if you truly do care about the next generation. La Proxima generation. Right. As we would say. But don't do it half hearted.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Well, it's not.

[Joanne Chavez]

You can't do anything half hearted. Right.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Like you said, you got to put your heart into this obligation, this duty or this work. It's that sense of I have to care about them more than I care about what they think about me. If that.

[Joanne Chavez]

Yes, yes. It's a, that's, that's a better way of saying it, but absolutely.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Wow. So, Joanne, once going back once again to St. Anne's and that basilica that is being. I mean, if people haven't heard about St. Anne's Basilica, as we mentioned at the beginning, it's the second oldest ongoing parish in the country, I believe maybe the oldest basilica in the country, completely flat out. But it's, it and the community it serves is pretty vibrant. But it's not just, you know, in 2026, where it's vibrant. It's. It's served. I mean, your family, it served you. Would you be able to. And so basically, the Catholic initiative wants to do this thing where it's helping. Not just the parish itself is revitalized, but the structure needs to be remodeled and renovated because it's going to fall, it's going to collapse on itself if they don't do something. So they're doing it right now, which is remarkable work. But in your experience, again, as an ordinary Catholic. We already established that as an ordinary Catholic, it sounds like the St. Anne's community with your family, with this, the people around you played a pretty impactful role on you. Could you say something about just even the community at St. Ann's and what it has offered you and the impact it's made in your life?

[Joanne Chavez]

Yeah. I think the community is more than, as we said earlier, more than the four walls of the building of the church. The community is a group of caring people. And I would say largely through my life, that looked like me, sounded like me, and made me always feel welcomed. Right. And I think that was critical. It's the place that we went in our darkest of moments and our best of moments. Right. And it's where we celebrated our losses. But also, you know, my mom and dad were married there. And there's something very special for the Hispanic community because there is an altar to the Vigen de Guadalupe, the Virgin of Guadalupe. And in our tradition, in our culture, you go and you say a special prayer to her when you are having a special moment, a special event, you take flowers to her. And we do it both in life and baptisms, in. In marriages, but also in death. My mom passed a couple years ago, and we held mass at St. Anne's it's where she was married. It's the place we needed to be. I believe she was baptized there. And so it's that core of who we are as Latinos. It's the core of who we are as Catholics. It's the core of who we are as a community and as a family.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah.

[Joanne Chavez]

And I. I don't know how else to describe it. I. You know, I have had the privilege of going to the Vatican, and I've told others that I think that there's something so special even about the walls. Right. But I know it's really. I know it's really the people. It's the feeling inside. Right. You do feel his Presence. You do know that that's where you go and give your gratitude. Right. When things are appear, you know, kind of went well. There's a story that I tell everyone that I had probably forgotten for many years, but my grandmother, my uncle, who is 15 years older than I was, who died in his 40s, was enlisted and drafted to go to Vietnam. So he is probably, you know, 18, 19, and I'm probably 4 or 5. And my grandmother promises to the Vihinda Guadalupe that, you know, please. She prays, please, implores her, please bring my son home. Right. Please keep him safe in this really very scary experience in this scary place. And he did come home. And when he came home, we showed our gratitude. She went on her knees down the entire aisle. This is a pretty large church.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah.

[Joanne Chavez]

And. And she did that procession on her knees to thank God. And then we took a special trip over to the side altar where the Vijayan Guadalupe was, which is, you know, our patron saint of Mexico, and gave thanks. And I remember being really young, my sister, myself, and then I have a woman who I call my sister, but she's really my aunt. She was. My grandmother had a child late, and my mom had a child early. So we're close in age, but she's my sister. And the three of us were there, we're little kids walking with her. It just plays a role and continued to remind us, even as really young kids, that this community was central to who we were, but also that God and. And La Viejan played a very important role in our lives. Right. And, you know, he didn't come home. He came home broken. You know, I'll say that. But he did come home. And how many of our young men didn't and still don't. Right. And young women. Right. And. And that's was something. Right. So it. It brings up a whole host of emotions. And I never point to one specific thing. It's an aggregation of everything that still warms my heart.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Well, that. And that makes sense because, you know, I know St. Anne's as the historic St. Anne's Basilica. That's beautiful. That's ancient. That's all these things that's vibrant right now. You know it as the parish. Right. You know it as. This is where we go. I did two pilgrimages with corporate travel services to Poland with our students, separated by, like, two years. And one of the things that I noticed, because I had also done pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to Rome, that the pilgrimages in Poland, we would go to these churches that are Historic in one way, shape or form. But they were people's parishes. They were like. They were remarkable churches. But every day, people from the neighborhood, that's where they would go and pray. And I think it kind of comes full circle in some ways about what you're describing, about how. No, this is really ordinary. This is. Here's St. Anne's Basilica. Incredible church. No, it's an ordinary parish in some ways. Like, here you are, Joanne, like, incredible in doing these amazing things. Well, no, I'm an ordinary Catholic, and there's something about that, that just extraordinary faith is just faith that's lived out in the ordinary ways.

[Joanne Chavez]

Absolutely. And I feel like if more people lived it every day in little ways, wouldn't we be a different world?

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah. Yeah. And that's. And that's actually maybe leads into my last question today. And I'm so grateful for your time. If more people would live this in ordinary ways, be a different world. When you hear the phrase or the words you are called, what do they mean to you now? And where do you believe God is still calling you right now?

[Joanne Chavez]

Yeah. You know, it's funny. My whole life, I probably didn't reflect upon that again. I told you I was ordinary. I just did. I just always. I just said yes, right. I have to. It was what I did. I think being called now is about making sure that I am maximizing my gifts. Right. Whatever those gifts are. And we all bring. We all. We all have gifts. I'll say this until I die. Talent is universal. We all have incredible talent and gifts. The real question is, how do we use it? And I don't think God has sent a bolt of lightning to me. It's in little ways. Right. It's in all the people he sends to ask me so that I can say yes.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah.

[Joanne Chavez]

Right. And it's in my commitment even more so now to these young people, recognizing that life is hard and life will always be hard. And it. But. But how do we help you blossom and be the best that you can be? Whatever. Whatever he has in store for us. And again, I don't know. I tell. Everyone says, do you miss your big job? You know, I was a C suite executive, one of six Latinas in the country. I don't. Because the work I'm doing, I think it's why he put me on this earth. It's why I was trained. It was why I stayed alive. Right. And I didn't even know it. Right. It's why I had all these lived experiences, so I could bring it Back to these kids, to these people that I work with every day.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Wow, thank you for that. That is Mother Angelica. I just came across this. I was reminded of this recently. Mother Angelica, who founded ewtn at one point, she had once said, or maybe she said many times, that we only know God's will after the fact. That sense of, okay, I don't know if this next step is what God wants. I'll just, I need to take it, though. There's no obstacle. I need to take it. And then I look back and say, okay, that was God. Yeah. Or look back and say, nope, that was me. But it sounds like that is Joanne, how in so many ways you've lived where it's, okay, I'm going to decide. I'm going to look at the facts, I'm going to look at what needs to be done. I'm going to look at myself and see, okay, I can do something, and then I'm going to act. And that seems so, so critically important to knowing where you're called and what you're called to do and be called to become. Because, yeah, oftentimes now you look back and say, oh, that's why God led me through by this path. I only know God's will after the fact.

[Joanne Chavez]

That.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

And it sounds like that might be a part of. Part of your story too.

[Joanne Chavez]

Oh, yes, so true, so true. So, yeah, again, you didn't wake me up one night and say, you will go do this instead. I was just led down a path. I mean, I took the road, you know, that was not ordinarily taken. And it's led me back to where I started, which is wild because I tell everyone I've lived everywhere. I've lived in London and Chicago and Texas and Houston and Mexico, Mexico City and all kinds of places. Right. But where am I? Back home.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

Yeah.

[Joanne Chavez]

Where I belong.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

That's amazing. I am so grateful. Joanne. Thank you. Not only thank you for your time today, but thank you for, again, just, I think, refreshing everyone who's listening to this by that being reminded of the fact that, okay, we can have massive gifts or small gifts, we can have incredible opportunities or ordinary opportunities, but the key is for relentless striving after excellence. Do your duty, put your heart into it, and just say yes to God, which is the recipe for being a saint. So thank you so much for joining us today for this podcast.

[Joanne Chavez]

Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you so much.

[Father Mike Schmitz]

And also thank everyone for listening to called this podcast is made possible by the Catholic Initiative. The Catholic Initiative is inspiring bold faith in action, just like in Joanne's life. It's inspiring that by investing in vibrant but often under resourced Catholic communities through the restoration of iconic parishes like St. Anne's Schools and Community institutions. If you want to learn more about their projects, or if you want to discover how you can make a difference, please visit TheCatholicInitiative.org that's TheCatholicInitiative.org Remember, the gospel is more than just words. It's a way of life. As Jesus reminds us and teaches us In Matthew chapter 25, when we serve the least of these, we serve Him. So until next time, let's keep listening for God's call and let's have the courage to answer it. God Bless.