SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio nonprofit founded in memory of Viola Barrios is inviting the community to an evening of food, music and family activities to support its scholarship and charitable assistance work.
Viola’s Huge Heart Festival is scheduled for July 27, 2026, from 4 to 8 p.m. at Viola’s Ventanas, 9660 Westover Hills Blvd. Organizers say the event will include a chicken fajita dinner, a cash bar and live music, along with snow cones, popcorn, face painting, a photo booth and a balloon artist. The festival also plans to feature animals from the San Antonio Zoo and a children’s play area.
Viola’s Huge Heart Foundation is a San Antonio-based organization established by the Barrios family in 2008 in memory of their mother, Viola Barrios. The foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Viola’s three adult children — Louis Barrios, Dr. Teresa Barrios Ogden, DPM, and Diana Barrios-Trevino — make up the foundation’s board of directors and serve strictly as volunteers in all foundation activities.
The foundation’s mission is to improve the lives of good, hard-working individuals — especially women — who face insurmountable obstacles by providing hope through educational scholarships and charitable assistance. The organization focuses its efforts in places Viola Barrios loved most: San Antonio and her hometown, Bustamante, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
The foundation works with various schools throughout Greater San Antonio to identify students in need, with a goal of creating and funding scholarships for terms of three to four years to help with tuition and other qualified school-associated expenses. The foundation does not distribute funds directly to individuals and does not identify students in need. It says funds may only be used for qualified scholarship purposes under Section 117 of the Internal Revenue Code, including tuition, enrollment fees, books, supplies, and equipment required for a course by an educational institution.