Expressing deep gratitude for Houston’s everyday heroes
These unsung seek no headline or reward for what they do to bind the community together.
As an editorial board, we have the responsibility to hold people in positions of power to account and we spend the bulk of our time focused on them. We respond to difficult events including mass shootings, which have again captured headlines. This Thanksgiving, though, we take a moment to express our deep gratitude for everyday heroes. The individuals represent the unsung who seek no headline or reward for what they do. Whether it’s fighting illegal dumping or rescuing people in a war zone, these heroes bind us together with their love and sacrifice.
Carolyn Addison Rivera
When Carolyn Addison Rivera first called about the house for sale in the leafy Settegast neighborhood, the homeowner had a warning. “You may not want to move here,” Rivera recalls the woman telling her, because African American people are moving into the neighborhood. Rivera was quick to respond: “Well, I’m an African American so I’ll be with my people. I’m still interested in buying the home.” More than 40 years later, she still lives in the same home, having raised five children there. When we first featured Rivera in an editorial, it was for her tireless work as an advocate and community helper during and after Hurricane Harvey. The retired teacher and educator, whose own home flooded in the storm, stocked drop houses with essential supplies where waterlogged neighbors could get what they needed. After the waters receded, she switched into advocate mode, educating herself on city ordinances and state regulations and showing up to City Hall to ask for better drainage in her easily-flooded northeast Houston neighborhood. But her role as beneficent busybody began long before. Since at least 2008, she’s been lighting up the 311 map with calls about illegal dumping and ditch maintenance. She’s even chased away would-be illegal dumpers. “He got that trash up and got out of there,” she said about one encounter. Ahead of the election, she was busy registering voters. Rivera didn’t necessarily anticipate spending her retirement this way. But since she moved in, she said she’s seen the frequency of city services dwindle. For many of her neighbors, it can feel frustrating and fruitless to fight for more after so many decades of seemingly deliberate neglect. That’s why with every lesson she learns about how the city works and how to get things done, she takes it back to her community. “I am learning so hopefully I can lay the foundation to help the people that live in my area to help themselves by fighting,” Rivera said. “I’m happy that I have the opportunity to do it because education no matter what the age is important.” Every Houstonian would want a neighbor like Rivera and Houston is better because of her.
Consuelo Ramírez
There are voting rights activists and then there’s Consuelo Ramírez. The 57-year-old domestic worker from El Salvador has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years but, as a noncitizen, still cannot cast a ballot. Yet come election season, she makes sure dozens of her neighbors who do have the right to vote don’t take it for granted. Before she starts her job as a domestic worker, Ramírez takes dozens of abuelas who don’t have their own transportation to the polls each election, checking off a list of them in a colorful notebook like an Election Day Santa Claus. Ramírez takes her duties as a voter chauffeur so seriously that she’s been known to threaten to withhold food from her adult children until they show proof that they took a trip to the polls. “If you don’t make it to vote, forget it,” Ramírez told the Chronicle’s Elizabeth Trovall, “You’re not going to see any tacos from mom.” Besides helping neighbors to the ballot box, Ramírez has made a second career out of being an indefatigable voice for better wages and conditions for domestic workers. She even went viral after her passionate exchange in Spanish with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke was posted on his TikTok page. Ramírez may not have the right to vote, but she has a patriotism that outshines many of us who do.
Kendrick Simpo
For six months, we did not know about Sgt. Kendrick Simpo’s act of courage stopping a would-be mass shooter at the Galleria mall because he thought of it as just another day on the job. In February, while working a Saturday job as a security guard, Simpo spotted a man in black, baggy clothing with a long gun and semi-automatic handgun walking purposefully toward the Westin Galleria where hundreds of girls were in a dance competition. Without drawing his weapon, Simpo pinned the suspect against a wall until help arrived.
As new revelations mount, month after month, about hundreds of officers in Uvalde who did not intervene in the massacre at Robb Elementary, Simpo’s story stands in sharper contrast as a reminder that there are unheralded heroes in uniform putting themselves at risk to keep us all safe. The Texas Legislature has made their work more difficult by passing permissive gun laws and refusing to enact common-sense reforms, but officers like Simpo keep showing up.
CrowdSource Rescue volunteers
Since 2017, the homegrown CrowdSource Rescue has been a reliable presence after every major disaster in the Houston area and many elsewhere as well. During Hurricane Harvey, they coordinated rescue efforts and created a user-sourced map where people could ask for help. Thousands registered. After Winter Storm Uri, the group filled jug after jug of water. Throughout the year, they regularly deliver meals across the community. They’ve managed to maintain a seamless sort of presence without the difficult red tape that accompanies many other assistance programs. On its food insecurity website a button on the left simply reads “I need food.” On the right: “I can help.” Their motto, “Neighbors Rescuing Neighbors,” reflects the experience of so many of us during disasters. But they’ve managed to make it their mission, connecting volunteers and coordinating resources wherever they’re needed. And they’ve expanded our understanding of neighbors. This year, after much consideration, the group even sent resources to Ukraine, where a select team of people, some with prior combat experience, helped evacuate people and shared medical and other supplies via Veterans Without Borders. Some of the key folks behind the nonprofit include director Matthew Marchetti and field coordinator Paul Middendorf. But it takes a whole army of volunteers to run — some have only an hour to spare and others dedicate far more. A nonprofit can’t replace emergency services, even the group’s website says as much. And they shouldn’t. But we also know you can’t replicate the neighbors-helping-neighbors spirit of everything CrowdSource does.