EPISD mom has cinder block benches built for kids waiting for school bus

El Paso, Texas-- One El Paso Independent School District mom took action after seeing students for Brown Middle School wait for the bus on a broken rock wall.

As her Mother's Day present, Jenny Solo asked her husband Rafael to make a cinder block bench for the bus stop so those students could have a more comfortable place to wait.

"We just wanted to do something nice and give a place for kids to sit. It's a win win for everybody," said Rafael Solo.

Jenny and Rafael Solo moved to the Borderland right before the pandemic. When they saw a bunch of school aged children sitting on their broken rock wall, they were confused.

"I asked them what they were doing waiting so early in the morning while I was out watering my plants and they said that they were waiting for a school bus," said Jenny.

Jenny and Rafael are parent's to two young kids themselves. Knowing that these students had to wait for the bus on a broken rock wall was concerning for them.

"I thought this is not very safe because our wall was crumbling down and so I asked my husband to build me a bench for mother's day."

Rafael's dad helped come up with the plan to make the bench.

"He's a civil engineer so he's kinda good at putting things together," said Rafael, " He told me, 'oh you need this' and the cinder blocks would be fine and just some treated wood and that's pretty much it."

His two young children assisted in creating mom's Mother's day present as well.

"The actual doing part was during Mother's Day," said Rafael, "We just had a little party where we stained it and we just painted the blocks together."

The project took Rafael over 10 hours to complete. It was a labor of love for his wife.

"The way I see it is happy wife happy life," said Rafael as his happy wife laughed and agreed.

"I was really gratified with how people responded," said Jenny, "I love the fact that some of them said that they had a bus top in front of their house and that they were going to build one too."

Creating the bus stop was a simple, but kind, gesture that meant a lot to the kids nearby.

"I posted about it and I didn't know how it was gonna go over," said Jenny, "I was watering my plants this morning and I saw the kids and I told them this is for them and they were pretty excited and they said, really, and they just sat down."

"I believe do unto others as you do unto yourself." said Rafael, "I have kids and i just hope the neighbors would look out for my kids like we look out for them. We’re all in this together so just making life easier for everyone else.”