JADA HONORS HERO
On her program “Red Table Talk,” Jada Pinkett Smith celebrated Memphis “hero mom” Tammy Rivera, who has delivered thousands of meals to coronavirus front-line workers.
Tammy Rivera, the Memphis Uber driver who has been celebrated as a hero of the pandemic in numerous national news stories about her volunteer food deliveries to doctors and nurses, has received a gift to make those deliveries a little more glamorous: a new car.
The “eco-friendly car” was presented to Rivera by Jada Pinkett Smith during Friday’s episode of Smith’s talk show, “Red Table Talk,” on the “web television” network, Facebook Watch.
Titled “Mother’s Day Surprises for Coronavirus Heroes,” the episode focused on several “hero moms” who have been involved in the “front lines” of the pandemic. “Tammy Rivera is a single mom of two who makes a living as an Uber driver in Memphis,” Smith said, introducing Rivera’s segment, which also included clips of WMC-TV Action News 5 anchor Joe Birch extolling Rivera’s story, which in the past few weeks has been reported in People magazine, the New York Post and London’s Daily Mail.
Since March, when one of Rivera’s early-morning Uber customers was an exhausted and hungry nurse who had not eaten during her overnight shift at Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital, Rivera has headed a grassroots Facebook effort she calls “Feed the Frontlines,” which has raised thousands of dollars to pay for thousands of meals, which Rivera delivers to workers at the hospital.
“Tammy’s maternal instincts kicked in,” Smith said, explaining Rivera’s reaction to that morning’s fateful ride. “She was determined to make sure the hospital workers taking care of COVID-19 patients would be taken care of themselves.” After Rivera posted her idea on Facebook, the donations poured in; for seven weeks now, has now been delivering up to 60 meals a night to the hospital.
“Even car trouble is not going to stop me,” Rivera said, in a video interview shown on “Red Table Talk,” before joining Smith in a Zoom-style teleconference that included Smith’s co-hosts, Willow Smith (the daughter of star couple Jada and Will Smith) and Adrienne Banfield-norris, and that was interrupted by taped testimonials of appreciation and wishes of “Happy Mother’s Day!” from Methodist Le Bonheur staffers and Rivera’s sons, Fuller and Barrett.
“I am so overwhelmed, because I don’t get to see those faces,” said a tearful Rivera, referring to the hospital workers, who are inside on duty when she delivers her food to the hospital lobby. “I don’t get to see the actual people who are getting the meals.”
Smith then told Rivera that the Smith Family Foundation had purchased for her a new “eco-friendly car,” to help with not only her deliveries but with her livelihood. (The make and model of the car were not specified.) “We hope that this makes it a little easier for you,” Banfieldnorris said.
Rivera acknowledged that the shelter-at-home recommendations that have accompanied the pandemic have just about “wiped out” her ability to make ends meet as an Uber driver. “Just like every other single mom, it’s a struggle, finances are always tight, but when I’m helping other people, my problems seem very, very small in comparison.”