Zelene Blancas, a teacher from El Paso, Texas who taught kindness to her students, loses her battle with Covid-19

Blancas tested positive for the coronavirus on October 20 and a few days later was hospitalized, her brother, Mario Blancas, told CNN. After weeks of showing signs of healing and taking action on her own, her oxygen levels dropped and she was intubated on November 22.

The otherwise healthy 35-year-old has never come out of the ventilator, her brother said. She spent two months in hospital before dying of complications from Covid-19, her family said.

The way she lived her life and how she conveyed a message of kindness to her students and everyone around her is how her family wants to remember Zelene, he said.

“Even though sometimes being a teacher is a bit difficult… she always looked in a positive way,” Blancas said. “I didn’t know until now, but it was a walking angel.

Zelene Blancas leaves behind her parents, Gloria Luna and Victor Blancas, her brother and her niece, Natalia. Her babies were her two dogs, Rocky and Chico.

She taught her students to be nice

Chavira said she remembered when Blancas captured the video right before the November 2018 vacation. The video showed a line of students saying goodbye to a classmate, after choosing a hug, a handshake, a high five or a punch.

“It was her class every day. It wasn’t anything she was doing special or anything new,” Chavira said. “The culture in her classroom was very caring, very loving. She taught her children to be kind to each other and to really see each other as family.

The video provided an overview of the kind of classroom environment Blancas encouraged and represented who the teacher was.

“That was her in itself,” Chavira said. “That in itself tells you the culture she created in her classroom.”

Blancas was a bilingual teacher and most of her students were learning English, Chavira said. Some of its students were new to the country and others were new to the area. It was up to Blancas to put parents and students at ease.

“Teachers do more than teach,” she says. “The success she had in her classroom, with her students, with her families, was because she had this passion to make a difference and to take it beyond academics to students.

Blancas was the first to help new colleagues and the first to help anyone who needed it, Chavira said.

“We are all in pain because we know what a great future she has ahead of her,” Chavira said. “She was a shining star. Our community, our students, her family, it’s short this smile, this love, this warmth that she has contributed.

Chavira said you can see Blancas’ passion “the moment you meet it”.

She spread love and kindness with pink socks

This passion has spread around the world in Blancas’ many tweets about his students, his class and his work with a non-profit organization meant to spread kindness.

Nick Adkins met Blancas on Twitter in 2018 when he saw his video of his students hugging and leaving the classroom.

The idea is that whoever gets the pink socks becomes part of the mission to spread love and empathy and Blancas “has lived the philosophy of the giveaway every day,” he said.

“Zelene Blancas was the best of mankind,” Adkins wrote. “The ripple effect of the love and kindness that she has brought into the universe teaching her children over the years is immeasurable.”

Blancas lived the mission and his legacy is the mission, Adkins wrote to CNN.

“Ms. Blancas, all of the staff and students at Shook are what we should all be striving for every day, every moment. She lives in the love that she taught and spread, ”he wrote.

Pinksocks Life raised money and donated 1,337 pink socks to the school, Adkins wrote in a blog post.

“Her idea was basically to promote kindness because lately there’s been a lot of bullying, so she wanted to reverse that and make these students change and believe in kindness,” her brother said.

Blancas said his sister is working on his own passion project, a project he hopes he can bring to light. She was writing a children’s book and had already drawn the illustrations, he says.

It was his sister who also inspired Blancas to become a teaching assistant and follow in her footsteps, he said.

“She has been a mentor to me in a personal and professional way,” Blancas said. “Thanks to her, I will follow her heritage and become a teacher.”