Uvalde teen who made heroic 911 call to save classmates surprised with $2000 quinceañera dress
Despite suffering the trauma and emerging out of it with her courage, Miah Cerrillo was still a 15-year-old who had dreams for her quinceañera.
When you do good, it is remembered in ways you could never imagine. A teenager from Ulvade, Mirah Cerrillo, is still being recognized for her courageous act during the Ulvade school shooting in May 2022, per Good Morning America. The girl, who was then a fourth grader at Robb Elementary School, went out of her way to call 911 when the shooter stormed into her school, ABC News reported on November 18. She’s now 15 and ready for her quinceañera, wanting to celebrate a life almost taken away. Cerrillo decided to visit the popular store MODA 2000 to pick her dream dress, but when the young woman arrived and made her acquaintance, the dressmakers had the most touching surprise waiting for her.
May 24, 2022, was a day of disaster for Ulvade, the Texas Tribune revealed. The shooting at Robb Elementary School was noted as one of the deadliest shootings at a Texas school. Two adults and nineteen children lost their lives that day and Cerrillo was moments away from facing the same reality in her fourth-grade classroom. She was next door to the shooter when she reacted by calling 911 and asking for a “policeman” to come to her classroom. As a fourth grader who was riddled with fear, she decided to brave the odds and make the call, and it inspired several people across the globe.
Cerrillo’s mother, Abigale Veloz, remarked, “I always tell her if it were me in that situation, I don't think I would react the same way. And I tell her, 'You know, what you did was amazing.’” The girl still holds the scars of that day with physical wounds, including a shrapnel lodged in her back and shoulder. She also has bullet fragments visible on her shoulder, protruding out of her back. Now, as she’s turned 15, she’s marking her quinceañera — a crucial event in a teen’s life. Her special day is even more important than it would have been before 2022. It is a celebration that she made it through. “I’m here, I survived,” she noted. Like every other girl, she too had big plans and started prepping a year in advance.
It was then that she revealed what she hoped her dream dress would look like. The little girl had been fantasizing over videos of dreamy outfits from the popular store through their socials, so she knew her dress had to be from there. MODA 2000 — run by sisters, Gelssy and Gipsy Rodriguez and founded by their parents, runs on quite the sentimental note. The 15-year-old finally tried her dress on — a fairy-like ensemble with its pastel lavender color and embroidered flowers. When she walked down, donning the gown, the Rodriguezs were stunned. Moved by the fact that the brave Cerrillo was in their store with a dream to wear a creation of theirs, they made an unbelievable offer.
"After we tried on the dress and everything, Gipsy and her mother came up to us and said they would like to be the 'madrinas' [or godmothers] of the dress,” Veloz remarked. This means that the shop owners would be donating the dress to the teen. Gelssy explained why the gesture felt so selflessly reassuring. "The day that the mass shooting happened, I feel like it touched everybody in the nation, and Gipsy had talked about it… we wanted to give back to that community somehow,” she noted. With the brave youngster making her way into the store, it was like the “universe aligned itself” to help the Rodriguezs give back to her. Gipsy even designed the dress in a way to hide her bullet fragments so she could shine and be herself. And the day was perfect — her dress, father-daughter dance, and her entry into womanhood, even more resilient, stronger, and charming as ever.
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