The Quiet Power of Resilience
Thalia Vila’s Recipe for a Life Rebuilt
PHOTOS BY JACK PORTUNE | DESIGNED BY MADDY LAROCK
Thalia Vila moves with quiet intention at Catapult: checking a pan, taste testing ingredients, leading the energy in the kitchen without breaking rhythm. It’s the kind of movement that comes from muscle memory and care, the kind you only learn when food has always meant more than just providing sustenance.
This is how Resilient Meals is made in Lakeland—not frantically, but faithfully.
The meals are seed-oil free, cooked in olive oil, butter, or tallow, and built from whole ingredients. They’re lined up and ready to go, incredibly tasty and handcrafted with intention. From her delectable chicken teriyaki bowls to the homemade empanadas, Thalia creates delicious culinary eats that carry you through the day and are chalked full of nutritional value.
Building from the Beginning
Resilient isn’t just the name of her business. It’s her mantra and way of living out her calling. Thalia moved to Lakeland from the Dominican Republic in 2007 with her parents. They wanted me somewhere that felt like a community,” she says. “Somewhere people showed up for each other.”
She’s been here ever since.
Food has always played a central role in her life: her grandmother teaching her to cook, her dad in the kitchen, her mom pointing out, again and again, that this thing she loved might actually be a gift. As she got older, that gift sharpened into curiosity about nutrition, ingredients and the way food could support a body instead of working against it.
She prepared meals for herself long before it was a business. She paid attention. She traveled. She brought flavors home with her.
When Thalia met Jesse, who would later become her husband, they bonded over ideas and ambition. They tried things. Some worked. Some didn’t. They failed. They learned.
“We didn’t give up,” she says simply.
They married in 2019 and built a life that was full of movement, from new ventures to new plans, with constant recalibration. When the pandemic hit and Jesse was laid off, he launched a mobile chiropractic practice that Thalia managed the business side of.
“I felt like something was missing in my heart,” she says.
And then her husband suggested meal prep.
At first, Thalia hesitated. Why meal prep? Why now? But once word got out about the service, coworkers Jesse’s patients started asking about it.
By 2022, Thalia was cooking 12-hour days out of her apartment, surrounded by family and friends who believed in her before there was anything polished to believe in. Orders stacked up. So did responsibility.
“I treated it like a real business from the beginning,” she says. “I knew it deserved that.”
When she moved into Catapult, she called it a seed of faith. Growth followed.
“Even When It
Gets Hard, We Stay”
Thalia was always creative. Jesse was the visionary. He understood systems, branding, and long-term thinking. He taught her how to build something sustainable without losing herself in
the process.
As it came time to name the business, the word resilient felt earned.
“It was who we were,” she says. “Business hadn’t gone our way. Life hadn’t gone our way. But we were still standing.”
In 2022, when Jesse was diagnosed with aggressive cancer, the couple continued to stay true to their business.
“Jesse used to say, ‘Even when it gets hard, we stay,’” she says. “That stayed with me.”
After Jesse’s death, Resilient Meals didn’t pivot. Resilience, Thalia learned, isn’t about powering through. It’s about grace. It’s about getting back up without rushing yourself. It’s about continuing to show up even when the version of life you planned no longer exists.
Cooking with
Integrity and Memory
Today, Resilient Meals serves Lakeland with the same integrity Jesse helped instill from the beginning. Thalia refuses to cut corners on nutrition. Meals are cooked the way she would cook for herself and for families across the community. The meals are fresh, never frozen, and are crafted to remain fresh for five to seven days.
The rotating menu offers a wide variety of flavors, with everything from spaghetti bolognese with gluten free pasta to pork stew to peanut butter energy bites. Meals start around $14 on average, with discounts provided to subscribers and with free delivery on orders $65 and over. Orders can be placed throughout the week, up until Thursday evening, and pickups are available at Catapult every Sunday and Monday.
Resilient Meals partners with local gyms like EYS, offers nutrition consulting and custom menu design, serves healthy snacks at Concord Coffee in Lakeland and Winter Haven, and provides meals for everyone from bodybuilders tracking macros to families trying to eat well during a busy week.
“This is personal,” the 32-year old business owner says. “I’m feeding my [city].”
Her parents are an integral part of the business in the most literal way. Her mom cooks alongside her. Her dad helps with prep and logistics. What started as support became structure.
“If it wasn’t for them, I couldn’t do this,” Thalia says. “I always dreamed of a family business. I think this is it.”
Thalia has provided more than 50,000 meals to date, and Lakelanders have rallied behind this incredible woman who is truly embodying her company’s mission.
“Community means showing up for each other,” she says. “This place does that. We are strong together.”
The Quiet Power of Resilience
Thalia wants to expand into other wellness concepts, into new spaces that carry the same heart. She’s always thinking about how to do better, how to serve more fully. But she’s not in a rush.
Her faith grounds her. Her family sustains her. And the business, born from love, shaped by loss, and carried forward with intention, continues to grow.
Resilient Meals is successful because the woman behind it lives what she built, and every meal that leaves her kitchen carries that truth with it.