At 18 years old, she developed an interest in marketing. She started making videos and became active on social media.
Little did Canyon Country resident Debs Nieves know that her talent for marketing and her powerful social media presence would one day become a lifeline for others in their darkest hours.
“We might have something today, but we might not tomorrow,” she said during a recent telephone interview. “And maybe I don’t have something, but the neighbor does, and the neighbor’s willing to share what he has with me, and I’m willing to share what I have with him so that we could be a strong community.”
Nieves, 38, talked about growing up in Puerto Rico with very little, and having to go through much hardship.
She said natural disasters, such as hurricanes, were the norm for her people.
“One thing that separates them (her fellow Puerto Ricans) from others is the resilience that they’ve learned through hardships,” Nieves said. “And because of that, we were taught when we were very little to help each other, to be a community and share what little we have.”
Nieves is very much of that mindset, having even sacrificed her job some years back so that she could help those who suffered in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017. She’d go on to help bring truckloads of goods to victims of the Eaton Fire earlier this year, and she recently joined local efforts to help homeless people.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Nieves didn’t initially harbor a dream to come to the continental U.S. When she became interested in marketing, she thought she’d do it in Puerto Rico. But a mentor connected her with “Fast and Furious” actor Vin Diesel, allowing her to join the team that organized his birthday celebration in Puerto Rico.
Nieves “got very close with the ‘Fast and Furious’ team,” and it was that relationship, she said, that influenced her to come to California.
She’d ultimately land in the Santa Clarita Valley, where she said she understood so much filming took place.
“I came out here originally to work in (film) production, and I did,” she said. “I did do that for a long time, but working in film is not necessarily always sustainable if you’re not working for a company full time.”
Nieves was able to pick up marketing work. She gained employment with a dental company for some time in that capacity, but it wouldn’t last forever.
Hurricane Maria — a Category 4 storm — struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, 2017. According to the United States Geological Survey, estimates of the human death toll ranged from 2,975 to 4,645, with recorded 48-hour rainfall totals of up to 30.01 inches.
Nieves felt obligated to do something to help those who had suffered.
“We don’t get a lot of support from the government, and by that, I mean the local government,” she said. “We’ve learned to just fend for ourselves and help each other out.”
Nieves turned to social media to ask for donations, and she used a friend’s parking lot in Beverly Hills as a drop-off location to collect items from the public.
“They brought so many things that I couldn’t fit it in the truck,” she said. “I couldn’t fit it in my car. I couldn’t fit it anywhere. My friend helped me to bring the stuff to Santa Clarita, but my garage was completely full.”
Nieves was eventually able to receive help from a church in Torrance. The church leaders offered space in what Nieves called their “big hangar-type church,” where she stored about 3 million pounds of goods, including food, toiletries and clothing.
Still, more and more stuff kept coming in.
“At this point, this is bigger than me,” Nieves said. “Now it’s time for us to find ways to take these things to Puerto Rico.”
That was another issue: How could she get all the items collected from the mainland to Puerto Rico?
So, she started reaching out to professional baseball teams.
“The Astros and the Red Sox were the ones that responded,” she said. “They took the first load in two planes that they have. They took it to Puerto Rico.”
Nieves and others went over afterward so that they could give the items to the people in need. She said she worked with a local leader to waive taxes on the items they brought in.
The people were so thankful, she said. They were also so very much in need. For three years, Nieves was collecting items and making runs to Puerto Rico.
“Because of that, I lost my job,” she said. “I worked for the dental technology company back then. The guy was Puerto Rican, but he said, ‘I have an operation to run. I can’t do it without you. So, either you help me push my company forward, or, unfortunately, you’re just going to have to be let go.’ I said, ‘You know what? OK, I’m out.’”
Nieves said that, at that time, her family, friends and roots mattered more to her than anything else. She couldn’t just stay home with power and water, watching TV, while people in Puerto Rico were struggling deeply.
However, Nieves still needed a way to support herself, so she began freelancing in marketing.
Eventually, she saw that the people she was helping were sustainable and could rebuild.
“I basically just told everybody, ‘If I’m ever needed, just let me know what you need,’” she said.
Nieves would take up other causes in similar ways. In January, when the Eaton Fire hit Altadena, she sprang into action once again. She said she helped around 1,000 families.
She spoke to a few of her marketing clients — business owners in the SCV — and organized an effort to collect needed items for fire victims.
Scott of Mike and Nick’s Tire and Service in Canyon Country, who didn’t want to give his last name, had been doing his own work to help homeless people. He knew Nieves through previous business interactions and spoke about how he got involved with her efforts to help fire victims.
“When the fires hit, she and I looked at each other, and I said, ‘OK, what do we need to do?’” Scott said in a recent telephone interview. “She went on social media and broadcast, ‘Hey, donations being accepted for the Altadena fire,’ and it just blew up amazingly. We had 100 volunteers bringing things, people dropping off truckloads of stuff, companies coming dropping off stuff. We had so much stuff, it was overwhelming.”
He added that, to make space for the donations, he cleared out the warehouse above his store and put what he called “a Walmart” up there, with clothing, diapers, toothbrushes, shoes and other necessities.
Nieves’ network of people came through again. Many of the people, she said, had come along from one effort to the next.
Asked how she developed such a following, she said it began years ago when she used to make what she called “funny videos” on social media.
“I gained a lot of traction with that,” she said. “And I got a lot of people to follow me because of what I did. I did it for fun. That’s what basically helped me gain a lot of visibility online. I’ve always thought that my platform was going to be for one of two things — to market myself as a freelancer to get clients, or to help people. I’ve been able to do both. But it was always a marketing strategy for me to gain followers. If I had the following, then I could market myself better and get more clients.”
That network of people would continue to follow her.
Once the victims of the Eaton Fire appeared to be back on their feet, Nieves found many donated items still in storage. She redirected them to support ongoing homeless outreach led by Scott and Canyon Country resident Tim Gobi. In May, she joined them for a barbecue lunch event in Lake Balboa.
Again, Nieves went to her people. For the barbecue, she brought along local businesses like The Break Room and Eighth and Rail in Newhall. They prepared barbecue at The Break Room, and then they took the food and other donations down to a place in Lake Balboa unofficially known as “The Trenches” where many homeless people live.
Scott said that his efforts, combined with those of others, have been expanding. Since Nieves joined, their work helping the homeless has attracted more local business owners who are eager to get involved.
“Whether you’re ‘social media’ or ‘brick and mortar,’ we’re trying to use our power of influence and convenience,” Scott said.
He added that he’s even used his business as a place for people to come by and drop off donations.
“Our customer base is bringing stuff every week,” he said. “They’re dropping stuff off now into our trash cans more consistently than ever. Some people leave a couple-buck donations.”
Scott spoke about Nieves’ ability to reach people who can help, who regularly help her no matter the cause.
“I would think that if there was a hurricane in Texas,” he said, “they would all commit: ‘You want to go?’ ‘Yeah, OK, let’s go.’ And there are a lot of people, surprisingly enough, who really just want to volunteer their time. When disasters hit, they don’t know what to do and how to do it, but then when they see Debs’ post — and that she does this local — then they coordinate. To gain 100 people in one day — you should’ve seen that day. I mean, literally truckloads just pulling in, one after another.”
And while so many people are in awe of what Nieves does, she wouldn’t have it any other way. She has to help. Because she believes that, in a strong community, no one stands alone. People have to be there for one another.
Nieves reflected on her own struggles growing up, and she expressed deep empathy for people currently facing hardship.
“I was in their shoes once,” she said. “I know how hard it is to not have anything, and how hard it is to push forward, and how sometimes we feel like giving up. But there’s always someone out there who’s willing to help. Someone helped me before when I was a kid — when I went through hardships with the hurricanes, when I went through hardships with my family’s financials. We didn’t have a lot. What I always did have was people willing to help, people willing to push me forward, people who showed me what resilience is and how important it is to be a community.”
Now Nieves is paying it forward. She hopes others will do the same.
Know any unsung heroes or people in the SCV with an interesting life story to tell? Email [email protected].
