Maya, Joaquin and Everything in Between
The Cozy Collection
Our daughter Maya launched a family service project called the Cozy Collection in 2015. The Cozy Collection collected socks and blankets for folks experiencing homelessness in the San Gabriel Valley. Her work collected more than 25,000 pairs of socks and was ultimately featured in media and recognized by local civic leadership.
- The Cozy Collection — SoulPancake · Watch on Instagram ↗
- Taking The Cozy Collection into schools — Watch on Instagram ↗
- Girl starts Cozy Collection for homeless — NBC LA · November 2015 ↗
- Claremont's finest honored during special day at the fair — Claremont Courier · September 2017 ↗
- Girl distributes socks to homeless in annual donation drive — ABC7 · November 2017 ↗
- What does a little girl do with 14,000 pairs of socks? — SGV Tribune · December 2018 ↗
For nearly 10 years, Carlos worked as a staff writer and producer at Associated Television International, where he wrote and produced the Daytime Emmys, the Hollywood Christmas Parade and the Hero Awards, travel shows and reality shows, and several documentaries on subjects including The Bible, NASCAR, American Idol, WWE and Oprah.
Editorial Director at Quantasy & Associates for over 10 years, providing strategy, content and production for clients like AT&T, Don Francisco's Coffee, the California State Lottery, Spotify, LA Local, LA84 and the Grammys. Also produced social content and campaigns for celebrities like Kevin Hart, Steve Harvey and Mariah Carey.
Books, Zines and Scribblings
Jesus' Dawg (Winter 2027) follows a street dog who trusts nobody until he meets a kid named Jesus. Also coming: Mouthpiece and Wack, Dope, Peace: Hip Hop Triumvirate.
Carlos Aguilar draws on life experience and insights from philosophy, theology, teaching and advertising to present workshops with impact.
Humor helps us recognize contradictions, question assumptions, connect across differences and find room to act when circumstances feel fixed. A perspective we can cultivate in how we teach, lead, work and live.
Talk Topics
-
Humor Takes You FurtherHow can humor expand the way we see a situation and the choices available to us?
-
An Unlikely EducationWhat did each chapter of Carlos's life teach him that the others could not?
-
Who Gets to Be Smart?Which forms of intelligence do institutions recognize, and which do they overlook?
These are ideas I couldn't leave alone, so I built them. If it excites me, I find a way to make it real and put it in people's hands.
Mestizo
A direct-to-consumer third wave specialty coffee company. Collaborate with hip-hop artists, build the music into the package and turn every bag into a release. Not merch next to the art. The coffee was part of the art.
Fun Belly
I don't know if you heard, but I got paid to go to China to eat food and write about it. That gave birth to an idea. Then my job was to produce food travel and food TV. So then I got the bright idea to start a food tour company — and this is how it goes. What kicked off in 2017 and ran until 2019 is back — with a tasty vengeance.
See it on the Creative Entrepreneur page →Norwalk Brew House
I worked with Norwalk Brew House to bring poetry to beer cans.
Questions count
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Bookworm Brown
After graduating from seminary in 2001, I backpacked across Mexico and Guatemala, jotting down rhymes and later recording them into an album called Heaven and Earth.
Heaven and Earth
The album that tried to hold the sacred and the street in the same sixteen bars. The cover shows a skeleton holding two books on fire — a Bible and a dictionary — and that symbolizes what happens here.
Verses vs Everybody