Today we’d like to introduce you to Danny Quevedo.
Hi Danny, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I grew up with my maternal grandmother. None of my biological parents were present in my life since birth. I was always told that, because I nearly died at birth, my grandmother would be the best to care for me instead of my teenage mother. My grandmother was a devout Catholic and she believed a miracle would save me. No doctor at the hospital would either touch, see me, or much less treat me. In fact, every one of them had told my mother to just let things be and let me die. But my grandmother was determined. She found a doctor that did not give her a definite prognosis, but he gave her hope and at that moment. That is all she wanted. She wanted me to live.
My grandmother, being from a low-income class, offered her launderer and ironer services to local families in our neighborhood. This was our livelihood. Since I lived, I learned to work hard for the necessities in life. I was seven years old when I had to work to help at home. Because of my grandmother’s connections to different families, I was able to get odd jobs when the school year was over. I worked as a shoemaker’s assistant, a construction worker for a blacksmith store, and sometimes helped a community lady sell food. I was taught that we must work hard to be someone in life and have goals to reach. I must say that through it all, religion and faith always played an important role in my young life and in my upbringing.
Two weeks before my twelfth birthday, my grandmother and I migrated to California and lived in Inglewood. I was enrolled in middle school. Before graduating from 8th grade, our new neighbors invited me to the church’s youth group in Hawthorne. Being in a new country was not going to stop us from continuing practicing our faith.
Although it was quite a distance away, I would still manage to walk for over two hours just to make it to church service and then group meetings.
When I had completed eleventh grade, I considered the priesthood as a vocation and entered the seminary. I finished High School while studying Latin, Greek and philosophy. After almost three years, I left the seminary and started working for the hotel industry. However, my home parish needed help in administration, and I was hired to work as accounts payable and bulletin editor. I helped the church establish a new gift shop in the premises. I worked closely with the pastor to promote and assist as much as possible. In 2007, eight years after opening the shop, I was promoted to Gift Shop manager.
Then, I began working closely with faith and traditions and how central they are to any Catholic Christian family: Baptism, Quinceañeras, Weddings, Presentations, and funerals. The store supplied not only the material tangible goods but also the hope and respect people were looking for. Those who also seek answers to their own spiritual questions or are in need of comfort in times of sorrow find a religious based bookstore helpful and educating. Unlike Botanicas a religious articles gift shop educates alongside the church year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, while promoting brotherhood, tolerance, acceptance, and inclusiveness.
When new pastorship arrived at my church in 2012, the council’s decision was that the store was no longer needed and decided to shut it down and with it terminate my employment. I went to work for the corporate world and went back to university to finish my BA in English. As fate would have it, in 2021 I ran into my old supplier from back in my gift shop years and encouraged me to open my own store. So, in early 2022, my partner and I decided that this would be the type of industry I wanted to get into simply because of my background and knowledge of the products and I was aware of the community spiritual needs.
My supplier helped me stock up on Mexican merchandise, statues, rosaries, bracelets, crosses and crucifixes, novenas, books, and bibles to be able to open our store. We looked at different cities where we might have been able to open the store, but something kept pulling me to North Long Beach, where we currently are. I believe it was the need in this part of the city -heavily populated by Latinos of every part of Mexico, Central and South America- that made me choose our current location. We have been open for one year and two months and even though when we first open, we only had mostly Spanish products, we still have been able to manage our inventory and bring plenty more articles and English items to continue serving the community.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Starting a business is relatively hard as it is. There are many components that go into forming an entity, finding the location, inventory, suppliers, licenses, etcetera. But, starting a religion-based business is double if not more difficult because of religious antagonism, vandalism, criticism, and judgment. Before my grandmother passed in 2002, I was able to come out and declare my sexual orientation to my family. My grandmother never judged and always demonstrated much more protection towards me ever since I was a baby.
Most of the struggles at first were having to quit my secured income job to start a business. We only depended on my partner’s income while the store got established and generated its own income. So, for the first nine months, it was very difficult to keep up with personal expenses and worry about our business expenses as well. There were many nights of uncertainty and anxiety. Even though I tried marketing in Google, Yelp, word of mouth, flyer drop-off at local catholic churches within 10-mile radius, the business did not get much notice. But after the year mark, we have been able to successfully increase foot and web traffic.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The products we sell are novenas, prayer cards, greeting cards, rosaries, bibles, communion and baptismal sets, statuary, incense, candles, frames, prints, hosts, clerical vestments, altar dressings, flowers, books and educational material. Most of the products have specific purposes and dedications. For example, prayer cards, although have the same image of Jesus, the prayer on the back is aimed to a specific spiritual need -protection of a soldier, firefighter, teacher, birthday, graduation, loss, or personal intentions.
There are endless possibilities to add products to every need. But these are the items most people look for when visiting a store like this because they can give them out as gifts, or they can continue learning about their faith and practicing their devotion. Catholic devotionals are a big part of nourishing the faith and keeping tradition and the notion of religion alive, especially in a Hispanic home.
Also, the Catholic Church calls for the daily renewal of faith through prayer and meditation. Therefore, this store provides the people with the necessary products and tools of their faith so they can live their spiritual life to the fullest while engaging and functioning daily in the overall structure of society.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Thus far in my life, I have taken four major risks, whether they were willingly or not. First was the risk of leaving my home country. Although this was not a decision of mine as I was still a minor, my grandmother was the epitome of risk-taking and seizing opportunities for personal improvement and goal achievements.
Secondly, not being Mexican, I took the risk to continue my seminarian education and agreed at the age of eighteen to go to Mexico and live there to continue my priesthood formation. This was a different culture than my Guatemalan culture, different that the American culture to which I was acclimating. Nonetheless, I still left my family, my home, and my comfort for self-discovery and discernment.
Thirdly, I took a risk in quitting my job in order to take the last risk which was opening the store. Although I was familiar with accounting, bookkeeping, financial control, business management plus my experience as a Religious Gift Shop manager in a very successful store at my church, the fear of opening a business can still be very overwhelming and scary. When I was working for the church, I was still taking a paycheck home at the end of the day whether the store sold anything or not. I had a secure income. However, having my own store is a constant monitoring of finances and meticulously choosing which items to purchase in order to continue engaging with customers and meet the demands while supplying the store with the inventory needed to succeed in our daily sales.
As Paulo Coelho writes, “You have to take risks… We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun –and also a moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy…” (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept).
Pricing:
- 0.50
- 4000
Contact Info:
- Website: sanjuditaslbc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tiendita_san_juditas/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tienditasanjuditas
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/tiendita-san-juditas-devotionals-and-gifts-long-beach?osq=religious+articles
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@sanjuditaslbc
