This past Sunday may have been the best day that Esther Bono has had in a while. The Trace Elementary teacher’s South San Jose home was badly damaged in a brush fire in late August, and then that night, burglars pawed through the house’s remains to steal jewelry and anything else they could find while the home was red-tagged.
But during Sunday’s Viva CalleSJ — the popular event when roads are closed to cars and open to bikes, skaters and walkers — some of her first-grade students set up a lemonade stand in the Rose Garden neighborhood near the school to raise money for their beleaguered teacher.
Esther Bono was emotionally moved by the gesture made by her students at Trace Elementary School who set up a fundraising lemonade stand in her honor during Viva CalleSJ on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. Bono’s home was damaged by fire and burglarized recently. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
Olivia Zazueta and her friends worked hard during the event, raising more than $3,000 by selling lemonade and cookies to people walking and riding by her parents’ house on Naglee Avenue.
“This is the nicest gesture anyone has done. I just couldn’t believe it,” said Bono, who had some lemonade and posed for photos with the generous students. “These kids are the real heroes.”
A GoFundMe campaign to help Bono’s family — including her husband and three children under 12 — also has raised $17,000.
Coincidentally, this isn’t Bono’s first fire experience. In 2010, her first year teaching at Trace, a fire destroyed the school, including her new classroom and all her supplies.
