Hundreds Found Her When San Antonio Lost Power. It Took Us Three Stops
SAN ANTONIO — When a powerful storm tore through portions of Bexar County at the end of August, straight line winds ripped apart roofs, knocked down trees and left more than 100,000 people across San Antonio without power.
On the West Side, the damage did not disappear when the storm did.
San Juanita Torres and her family were left without electricity for nearly three days as temperatures soared. Food spoiled. Her 10-year-old daughter pleaded to go somewhere cooler. Weeks later, cracks in the family’s roof remain.
But Torres also remembers the moment help began arriving.
“It opened up my heart,” Torres said. “It gave us the love that we needed and stuff. And she really did. Like I said, she really did a lot. I wasn’t. We weren’t expecting that.”
The “she” Torres was talking about is Cecilia Chavez.
Chavez runs the popular social media page 210 La Chismosa. When she learned what was happening in a neighborhood she once called home, she used the reach of that platform to ask San Antonio for help.
People answered.
Volunteers and organizations brought food, water, ice and cleanup supplies. Lines formed as families searched for relief from the heat and the prolonged power outage. Chavez says 876 people came through during one day alone.
She helped turn a social media page known for sharing chisme into a community lifeline.
When FOX SA asked viewers to nominate someone for its next Cash for Kindness award, Chavez’s name kept appearing.
Volunteers nominated her. Administrators who help run her page nominated her. People who received assistance nominated her.
Chavez received more nominations than any Cash for Kindness recipient FOX SA has seen in years.
Finding someone who deserved the $1,000 award was easy.
Finding Chavez was not.
The original plan was to surprise Chavez on the West Side, where Torres could thank her personally. Chavez believed she was meeting community members and a possible sponsor for her page.
But she never arrived.
The surprise then moved to a second location on San Antonio’s South Side. By the time FOX SA’s Ryan Wolf and Chavez’s friends arrived, she had already left again.
“This is where we’re supposed to meet Cecilia for the surprise that she doesn’t know about,” Wolf said as the plan began unraveling. “Unfortunately, she’s left location again.”
The group tried a third time.
Chavez’s friend and fellow page administrator Michelle Ramirez persuaded her to stop in a Home Depot parking lot by claiming she needed Chavez’s help signing documents.
There were no documents.
When Ramirez reached into the backseat of her vehicle, she pulled out an oversized Cash for Kindness check. Wolf, who had been hiding behind another vehicle, emerged to complete the surprise.
“Well, hello there,” Wolf told Chavez. “It’s nice to finally meet you. You are a very, very hard woman to find.”
FOX SA and DJC Law presented Chavez with $1,000 for the work she led after the West Side power outage.
After three locations and repeated changes to the plan, Chavez’s first response revealed exactly why so many people had nominated her.
“How do you feel right now, looking at that $1,000?” Wolf asked.
“Um, how am I going to give it back?” Chavez replied.
Chavez said she never organized the relief effort expecting recognition or a reward.
“We never meant to do it for anything like that,” she said. “We just wanted to help our community out.”
She says the Cash for Kindness award will now go back into helping that community.
“It pays to be kind,” Chavez said. “Always think of your neighbor, think of your people, think of your family, and it costs nothing to be kind.”
When families on the West Side needed help, Chavez showed up.
It took FOX SA three tries to return the favor.
Even then, she found a way to give it back.
Cash for Kindness is sponsored by our friends at DJC Law.