Daffi is twenty. His son is one. His son had heart surgery last year and lives on a feeding tube. While Daffi was in custody, his mother held everything together. He came home determined to be the man he had promised, in private, he would be.
The hardest part of being inside, Daffi told us, was not the boredom or the strip-searches or the time itself. It was hearing about his son's hospital appointments and being unable to be in the room. A father separated from a sick child has a particular ache that nothing else in the world quite touches. He carried it through every week of his sentence.
He was caught on a methamphetamine charge. Sentenced. Sent first to DRC, then transferred to CRC because of his age. Released in August 2025 on a tagging order until February 2026. His mother had been the one keeping the household afloat, alongside his sister and her own young family. Coming home, Daffi had one question burning in his chest: how do I take this load off my mother's back?
The first salary
His placement at the cafe came through CRC. He started in April, doing the un-glamorous things that every barista does in their first weeks — wiping, restocking, dragging the bins out at close. He learned the steam wand. He learned the grinder. He learned to pour milk in a way that doesn't fight back.
When his first salary cleared, he looked at the bank notification like a man looking at something miraculous. Not because the amount was huge. Because it was his, earned in a job nobody could take away from him by raising the question of his past. It went, almost entirely, to his son.
Why coffee matters
Daffi has fallen in love with the craft. He talks about extraction. He asks about origins. He wants to keep going — to become a properly skilled barista who can build a long-term career in this industry. Coffee, for him, is not just a job. It is the proof that he can build something legitimate, beautiful, his own.
His mother and his partner are his anchors. The cafe, he says, has become “a second home.” His colleagues ask about his son. They listen without judgment. They show up. And one by one, the bricks of a new life are being laid.
What he wants his brother to see
Daffi has a younger brother who is watching him carefully. Daffi knows it. He wants his brother to look at him in five years and see a man worth following — not because he was perfect, but because he came back. That, he says, is the motivation he gets out of bed for.
If a twenty-year-old can become a barista, a father, a son, and a brother worth imitating all in the same season — then mercy is not a sentimental word. It is a working tool.
The first salary was a proud moment. He told us it reinforced his belief that work — real, legitimate, honest work — was worth more than any shortcut ever offered him.— Matt, Founder
Soli Deo Gloria — to God alone be the glory.