SAN ANTONIO — Jasmine Treviño opened the door to her coffee shop in Southtown, and got ready to prepare a drink for a friend inside her trailer that is painted over with various band posters.
Treviño owns Alleycat Coffee and has run the coffee shop for four months. The artwork was done by her friend, Paul Garson. Inside of her trailer however, sits a box of stuffed animals.
"Everybody was looking, you know, for like an outlet, like what can we do?" Treviño said.
She, along with nine other business owners took part in a donation drive called 'Plushies for Uvalde.' It didn't take long for her trailer to start filling up.
"It got to a point where I was making coffees and I was like, I couldn't, walk this way," Treviño said, motioning to the right side of her shop. "So I was like, I don't know....I was just scared to get coffee all over the place."
A large yellow Penske truck sat parked on the street near the shop, as Shaggy Kay carried the box to the truck. The truck was already stacked high with similar boxes. Kay is the organizer behind the drive.
"Having some comfort, being able to like have a teddy bear or something to comfort you through those emotional highs and lows or anything scary," Kay said.
Kay delivered the first shipment of plushies on Saturday, with enough toys for every student in the district. Kay decided to take it a step further.
"We'll probably have the whole population covered. Everybody can have a plushie," Kay said.
The organizers were able to collect enough toys to fill three cars and three box trucks.
"We have an awesome community. I mean, I wish San Antonians understood how awesome," he said as more people arrived with donations. "You see, here we go to a couple more bags just showed up as we're packing up."
The following businesses participated in the drive:
- Gold Coffee
- Folklores Coffee (two locations)
- Jaime’s Place
- The Lighthouse Lounge
- Friends of Sound
- Alley Cat Coffee
- Cigar Pointe
- Southtown Vinyl
- Indy Coffee Club
The drive is no longer accepting donations for stuffed toys. Kay said they plan to run an art supplies drive sometime next week for the Uvalde community.