In every city, there are quiet architects of belonging … people who do not hold office or seek headlines, yet somehow stitch a community together through daily acts of care. In La Mirada, one of those people wears an apron, plays a kazoo, and arrives everywhere with a plate of cookies.
Her name is Dr. Cathy Alvarez. And if you have lived here long enough, chances are you have tasted her kindness, dusted lightly with powdered sugar.
Cathy was born in East Los Angeles, the only girl among five children, a role that seems to have trained her early in the gentle arts of patience, humor, and keeping the peace. She began baking at just 17 years old, inspired by a humble treasure: a Betty Crocker cookie book her mother bought for 77 cents at a 45-record store. From that small beginning grew a lifelong calling.
Today, Cathy owns more than 568 cookie cutters, and that number is still climbing. But she is not a collector in the quiet sense. Her kitchen is not a museum. It is a working bakery of love. Her famous sugar cookies are from an old family recipe given to her long ago by neighbors Wilma and Henry Hart, these cookies are legendary across the city. She guards the recipe carefully, like a sacred family heirloom, but the results are shared freely. That is her way.
Cathy lives by an open-door philosophy that feels like something straight out of our abuelitas’ generation: “I like people. My friends and family are always welcome here. Besides, what does it cost to be nice?” It turns out kindness costs very little, but it builds priceless things.
After graduating high school, Cathy married and moved to Mexicali, where she deepened her love of cooking and hospitality. When she returned to La Mirada, she began preparing meals for friends and community members. Word spread quickly. Before long, she was cooking for wedding receptions, including one for a Breck girl, and her talent became widely known.
Alongside her work in the kitchen, Cathy devoted herself to education. She served as a CETA worker in both Bellflower USD and Norwalk-La Mirada USD, earned her teaching credentials through Cerritos College and Cal State Long Beach, became an outreach consultant, and ultimately completed both her master’s degree and doctorate at the University of La Verne.
Yet no matter how many titles she earned, she remained simply “Cathy.”
She is a tireless volunteer – active in Kiwanis, 605 Kiwanis, the Community Foundation, Community Services Commission, and multiple PTA councils. And wherever she goes, cookies follow. Every organization she serves receives plates of them, baked with care and delivered with a smile.
She especially loves teaching cookie-making classes to special education students, where baking becomes not just a lesson, but a celebration of confidence and joy. Her Facebook page reads like a love letter written in dough – cookies, breads, homemade tamales -small edible acts of devotion to everyone in her orbit. And then there is the magic.
Cathy is affectionately known as “The Cookie Lady Who Plays the Kazoo,” collects aprons, and owns a legendary assortment of hats: pancake hats for pancake days, taco hats for taco service, and her favorites: an alligator hat and a fish hat. She wears them proudly, because joy, in her view, is meant to be visible. She even founded the Retired Teachers Luncheon Organization, where her Uncle Harry’s Happiness Cookies are always the star of the table.
Recently, she prayed over newly sworn-in Norwalk-La Mirada USD Board President Robert Cancio – dressed in a Christmas tree costume while distributing cookies and candy canes to the entire board. The La Mirada City Council, too, knows her well, especially for her beloved magic squares.
This is how Cathy moves through the world: lightly, playfully, faithfully. In an age of speed and noise, she practices an older rhythm … showing up, feeding people, remembering names, and making rooms feel warmer the moment she enters.
Dr. Cathy Alvarez reminds us that community is not built only in chambers and councils, but in kitchens and classrooms, at long tables and open doors. She is proof that sometimes the strongest civic infrastructure is a woman with a mixing bowl and a very big heart. And La Mirada is sweeter because of her.
