For Goodness’ Sake: Erica Shimamura Cultivates Community
By Ayesha M. Malik
Erica Shimamura has a gift – and that gift is bringing people together. Where our society disproportionately emphasizes hyperindividualism and a survival-of-the-fittest mentality, she is able to get communities to show up and support one another. As they say, it takes a village and Erica is a champion of cultivating it through her 501(c) nonprofit organization, 4 Goodness Project, Inc. I learned about Erica this past spring when I attended the Lunar New Year Festival on the block where the legendary, now-closed Westside gem Jefferson Bodega was situated. I knew right then that I had to interview her.
It was only natural that I found Erica and her project partner Izzy Tang chatting with friends about her next event, a back-to-school block party, as I approached to speak with them. After settling in, I handed her a stack of past Scene In SA issues. She immediately pointed to the Fall 2023 issue featuring Shek Vega and Burgundy Woods of San Antonio Street Art Initiative and excitedly exclaimed, “I’m partnering with them!” (As I’ve said many times before, and as Erica would also point out herself, part of the magic of San Antonio is that it is the Most Small-Town Big City™ in existence. Somehow, in the seventh largest city in the country, everyone knows each other.)
It was apparent Erica was perfect for Puro SA. Within seconds of meeting her for the first time, I was already getting the scoop about the Back Da Block party she was putting on in collaboration with one of Scene In SA’s past Puro picks on August 31. (Save the date and follow @4goodness_sa on Instagram for updates!)
Instead of arranging the traditional backpack and school supply drive, Erica revealed she was inspired to give back to her community by organizing to provide an oft-overlooked back-to-school necessity, haircuts, to students for free during a family-friendly event full of music, art, and local vendors. In addition to providing spaces and opportunities to empower area entrepreneurs, her ethos is firm in recognizing and maintaining the dignity and humanity of people who may be in need.
Erica’s philanthropic efforts accelerated when the global COVID-19 pandemic meant stay-at-home orders and losses of livelihoods. Many were struggling to put food on their tables. She discovered she couldn’t sit idly by when a fellow worker was impacted.
“The reason I launched [4Goodness SA] was I saw a need for a friend of mine and I just kind of started building off of that. When everything shut down during COVID, I saw the barista [from my corporate office job]. He’s the most cheerful and wholesome, wholeheartedly-loved-his-job kinda guy. He was going through a tough time. I saw him have the dreaded experience of having to put stuff back at the grocery store and I thought ‘I’m just gonna buy the stuff he put back.’ I went over to him and I talked to him for a bit.”
It was almost as if there was a form of survivor’s guilt that motivated Erica to rally a swarm of people to spread positivity and show true human compassion, not charity. “I got to go home and keep my job. [He] went home with complete uncertainty. How unfair is that? He revealed what he was going through, so I was like, let me ask a few people. I set up shop for people to drive by and put something, like a letter of encouragement, essentials, whatever, into a box. 400 people showed up just within a couple of hours, with some driving in from Austin, San Marcos, New Braunfels to bring him a letter, toilet paper, gift cards to H-E-B. It’s pretty incredible what people will do when you just ask them and you’re completely transparent about what you’re asking of them. It doesn’t need to be a grand gesture.”
As the pandemic continued to ravage communities, Erica, along with Luke Horgan of Jefferson Bodega, leapt into action to distribute food after a San Antonio wedding and corporate event planning company fumbled a $39 million federal contract under the United States Department of Agriculture’s Farmers to Families Food Box Program to source, store, pack, and deliver millions of pounds of perishable food—failing thousands of San Antonio residents in the process.
“They didn’t calculate for logistics and distribution,” Shimamura stated. Erica and Luke filled in that crucial gap and had their eyes set on maximizing the amount of good they could do by arranging distribution events in front of the beloved Bodega.
“Bottom line was there’s a bunch of food and a bunch of people who need it.” Erica reached out to Jamie Gonzalez-Stevens—an activist, pioneer of food access programs, board member of the Food Policy Council of San Antonio, and creator of the Big Fresh Market Box delivering fresh produce to local households and a mobile produce market called Mercado Por Tu Corazón (meaning “Market for Your Heart”)—to help arrange logistics with trucks. The rest was history, with a lot of hard work and volunteers, of course.
Erica recalled shutting down streets with just bodies and directing traffic a mile long. “We couldn’t guarantee everybody would get food, but people were getting in line and waiting an hour. Some of them got there two hours early, just to make sure they got food because they had five kids or they were a single person. One thing that set us apart from most food distribution was that we didn’t want your ID, income qualifications. People were like, what if someone takes advantage? I promise you, rich people – this was not on their radar.” Izzy chimed in, “They weren’t gonna wait in line.”
Erica emphasized that the needs of the people came before worrying about possible bad intentions of a few hypothetical actors: “Everybody needs to eat. We’re just going to figure out how to feed as many as we can. And that’s all we did, week after week until the food ran out.”
That said, Erica’s work is more than just about doing good through generosity toward one another—it’s about nurturing the community she wants to live in by curating spaces for genuine human connections. Growing up in San Antonio as half-Ecuadorian and half-Japanese, Erica endured a unique void and isolation that resulted in her feeling a lack of belonging to her Asian and Latina identities.
“In my experience, I didn’t realize being non-Mexican was an issue until I moved here, or that being a different kind of Asian mattered.” Erica also mentioned the prevalent prejudice against mixed-race individuals. “People from similar backgrounds were so adamant about not forming a community, but now, children of immigrants are recognizing that we grew up isolated because we were divided. If we had united, imagine how much more successful we could have been in increasing representation here.”
In a few years, she has grown her Lunar New Year Festival and buzzing night markets inspired by her trips to Japan, China, Thailand, and other countries. “The one thing that was common ground was the night markets. The food, the people, the merchants. It’s a buzzing warmth that you can’t get anywhere else, a universal language where it doesn’t matter that I don’t speak Thai or Chinese. But you know what? I can get around a night market. I ate well and people looked out for me.” And clearly, Erica hit the nail on the head in recreating that fuzzy feeling because the community and small local businesses show up.
Content warning: The interview portion of this article includes brief mentions of suicide and gun violence.
Why do you work so hard to foster human connections?
“COVID was such an isolating experience. People were experiencing loneliness in a much deeper sense. I saw how people show up if you just ask them to. This all started to become an homage to my parents. Both of my parents committed suicide when I was 26. I saw them struggle with that isolating feeling. Had they had someone advocating for them, I think it would have made all the difference. My parents would have never experienced anything like it. It wasn’t until toward the end of their lives that they saw the value of building relationships with folks who weren’t Japanese or from Ecuador. They had been through so much turmoil in trying to start a business – businesses starting and ending; the turmoil of having a relationship, career, and mixed kids; the silent struggle that immigrants experience.
I spent a lot of time being angry. And nothing would come of it. I was still mad, sad, and lonely. I was pushing everybody away. I was a much more abrasive person back then. I felt like I had every right to be angry, and I did. But I pushed so many people away that when I attempted to commit suicide, no one had checked on me. I had to get up and clean up the mess I made of myself after two days. I was like, ‘Well, shit. Now what? I keep waking up everyday and I’m still alive. What am I going to do with my life?’ Maybe I’ll try the alternative and just be happy that I get another day, another chance to do something. And now, how do I serve the universe for saving my life? I’m gonna do dope shit and make people feel important because they are. You could mean the world to one person and they’re gonna save lives and decide to do something different. [The markets are] not just a party with cool music and good food.
I think that, in the world right now, with as much heartache as there is and how much people are at odds and we’re at war with everything, it comes down to these basic little connections that can make a world of difference. So, maybe we’re not going to cure everything, but maybe we prevent the next horrible thing because someone felt like they belonged, were loved or cared for, or recognized.”
How did your experience and volunteering to serve the San Antonio community during COVID evolve into all the markets and cool events you put on and the small business community you’ve helped cultivate?
“People were dying [during COVID]. And people were dying for a connection. They were showing up and they didn’t even need food. They were there because they just wanted to be somewhere. So, I started doing pop-up markets—not to make money off of people, but for them to see what their money really does. Full transparency, if you pay me $25 to pop-up shop, your $25 is helping pay a DJ who otherwise didn’t have a job. It’s paying this other guy, who wouldn’t have otherwise had a job to set up chairs and tables. It pays this other local company. Everything just pays for each other. I’m just the organizer. These aren’t just my events. They belong to everyone there. They’re the ones who fund it. They’re why I’m able to afford to get barricades, security, porta-potties. What’s most important to us is that every vendor feels valued. So, we ask them how they’re doing, if they need anything, food, water.
Funny thing is, the most radical thing we’re doing is holding place for people. We don’t know their story, and quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. They just wanted somewhere to be and we have a place for them. We’d tell them we want them there and they would ask, ‘Can I help?’ It’s like, ‘Absolutely, come help me take this trash out.’ On a very basic level, that’s where this all started. I had a collection of sneakers like Jordans and designer bags and I sold it all so I could launch a 501(c) organization. In three years, I went from like 15 vendors to 150. It wasn’t until recently that I started dragging Izzy into it because it started getting so big that I needed help.”
Was it worth it?
“It’s just like this back-and-forth between businesses. I started going to [businesses] and introducing myself and telling them what I want to do. It’s so hard to run a business on your own. It’s so hard to get through your days on your own. If you just have someone who’s willing to hold a spot for you to be like, ‘I want you to show the one thing you’re most proud of or that you love to do. And then we get 40 other people who do the one thing they lost the most and we’re not here to charge them a million dollars [in vendor fees] for it. Most of them, if not all, make, curate, build, bake, and cook their own items. And you get to have an experience whether or not you have any money to spend. Is it worth it? Maybe someday it will be. I don’t make any money [from it]. [Izzy and I] still have our regular full-time jobs and it’s literally just us dividing-and-conquering the planning for these things just so the city can experience it and see that we don’t need anything else but each other. But we do need to have that community.”
Speaking of bringing community together, you brought together a whole village for a young 15-year old photographer and his mother in San Antonio who were victims of recent gun violence. You even organized a Zander Night with the Spurs. Tell me more about Zander and Angela Fernandez.
“I was going through the trial-and-error of how to successfully set up a market [around three years ago]. They set up shop and he was the most helpful, charismatic child I’d ever met. [Zander] was so intuitive of the needs of the others. That is something you don’t see in most people, but certainly not a 12-year-old. Setting up a market, it takes hours before and Angela was always early to events. You’re spending so much time together [at markets], so I got to know her and Zander.
He told me his story of how he won his camera at a Spurs game during Christmas. [He told them he wanted] a professional lens camera and they were like, ‘You’re 10’ and asked what kind. He wrote out like a Nikon something [model]. They said that was an expensive camera. He’s like, ‘I’m hoping we can save up enough. I want this camera more than anything.’ They went to their seats, and at halftime, he got this big camera setup from the [Spurs organization]. He wants to be a professional photographer and he started taking pictures and printing them.
Next, he needed a camera bag, and well, that still costs money. But you know what? We’ll start selling your photos. Zander’s telling Angela that she should start making money doing crafting because she’s really talented making notebooks and custom things out of old DVD and CD covers and all kinds of stuff. Now, it’s a mother-son duo and they’re at every market. People got to know them and fell in love. They were always early and stayed late. He checked on everybody. He’s known by hundreds of vendors who got to know him and saw him grow up from a happy helper to a really talented kid. He was everybody’s nephew.
And then [after the shooting], it derailed everything. A good amount of people didn’t know [and were asking] why they hadn’t been at markets. Everybody was like, ‘What do we do?’ And thoughts and prayers can only do so much when this kid’s gonna have a long road ahead of him with rehab and therapy. How do we take care of each other? And so, it was in a very big way that I asked for help the way I did because he was one of our own that grew up in this community. People showed up for him.”
Now that Jefferson Bodega has sadly joined a list of dearly departed local businesses this year, what’s the future of the Lunar New Year Festival and the markets?
“It’s so inspiring to see [vendors] work and hustle. There’s nothing romantic about hustling, but there is romance in seeing them win. That’s why I do this: I want to see [small businesses] win. I want to see how their shoulders come down away from their ears and they’re [relieved] like, ‘Oh my God, I just made enough money to pay my kids’ tuition’ or ‘He’s gonna be able to go to peewee baseball because I was able to make money today!’ Different stories from different people. It’s really amazing and I love it. I gotta keep doing these things. I’m gonna do at least two or three a year. August will be the next big one, and then, Lunar New Year for next year.”
Tell me more about the Back Da Block party in collaboration with San Antonio Street Art Initiative on August 31!
“I hate to say it, but I am not a fan of the traditional backpack drive. Kids don’t carry backpacks or aren’t allowed to anymore. The reality is, the backpacks that get donated aren’t the greatest quality. I asked my teacher friends what kids really need: socks, underwear, undershirts, hygiene items, deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste, basic essentials. Stuff that they need everyday. We’ll ask for donations like this because they don’t expire and get used year-round. We’re going to set up probably ten different hairdressers and barbers to do free haircuts for the first hour or two of the event. I did a back-to-school event a couple years back and they did like 100 haircuts. A lot of the kids had never had a professional haircut before. They said their moms usually cut their hair. The cool thing is they get to have that experience. There has to be dignity in how you serve people.”
As you may know, this feature series is called Puro SA. In your opinion, what are the people, places, things that embody the puro spirit?
“There’s enough room for success and creativity in San Antonio. What’s puro San Antonio is you and what you make of [the city]. The beautiful thing that people don’t realize is you can make anything you want out of it and all you gotta do is include and hold space for everyone. People ask me, ‘How do I get this done?’ and ‘How did you do that?’ and I just asked. So, they realize, ‘I can just go ask?’ and I say ‘Let me introduce you.’ Run with [your ideas]. There’s no gatekeeping of space. You just have to ask. I have to be fearless in my pursuit for something good and real because the most puro San Antonio thing you can do is throw a party with no money.” ■
This interview has been edited for conciseness and clarity.
If you or someone you know is thinking about self-harm or suicide, call or text 988 to connect with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The Lifeline provides 24-hour, confidential support to anyone in suicidal crisis or emotional distress. Support is also available via live chat onhttps://988lifeline.org/. Consider seeking support from a friend or family member who can help immediately, a physician, or mental health professional. In case of mental health crisis or emergency, call 911 for emergency services or go to the nearest hospital room. Remember, you are not alone.
