I almost ruined the surprise!

Lilia Garcia was the first winner of the CocoWalk Cares Community Service Award, which she accepted this morning at a surprise ceremony at CocoWalk. And in spite of my big mouth, she actually was surprised. I almost ruined it! I'll get to that, but here she is, surrounded by friends, being given flowers and the award, by CocoWalk's marketing manager, Naomi Evans. The award includes a $1000 shopping spree at CocoWalk.


Here is a group of friends walking over to Mayfair from the Coconut Grove Arts Festival Gallery, where Lilia does most of her volunteer work. She is responsible for the monthly exhibits and also the judging of the art that comes in for the yearly Coconut Grove Arts Festival. So seeing this group and hearing about the award, I assumed that Lilia knew about it, too. I had known that it was a surprise weeks ago, but everyone in town was talking about it, so I assumed Lilia knew, too. Plus she had to be at CocoWalk to accept, so I assumed that they told her about it to get her over there. Don't assume.


I ran into Lilia on the street outside CocoWalk about a half hour before the awards ceremony and I said something to her about "the big day," but I don't think she knew what I meant. But since she was at CocoWalk, I just assumed she must have known, because why would she randomly be at CocoWalk at 11 am on a Tuesday. She told me she was meeting with George Rodez, the artist, to talk about an art project. Here they are at a table at Bice Bistro.

They actually sat at this table and talked for about a half hour before anyone showed up. You can see everyone coming up behind her here to surprise her, she still had no clue at this point that they were there. She was smiling because she thought I was there to chronicle the meeting with George. You know, like, "there's old annoying Tom butting in again," but she was sweet and said something like, "Oh, Tom wants to get pictures of our meeting." But I was just positioning myself to get the photos of the surprise.


So anyway, I, also being clueless, assumed she was meeting with George first and then was knowingly there to accept her award, but apparently, as much as I talked to her beforehand, like most people I talk to, it went in one ear and out the other -- a good thing in this case. I had told her that I would see her after her meeting and that she must be very happy, and things like that, and she must have wondered what I meant at the time, but I assumed she knew!


But in the end, she was totally surprised, in spite of my big mouth (and I was surprised in the end, too, by how it all played out). All of Lilia's friends were thrilled at how gracious she was and how graciously she received the honor and there were a lot of happy tears this morning at CocoWalk.