July Lunch & Learn with Lisa Torres: Messages of Joy, Inspiration, and what it really means to be a good neighbor!

by Audra H. Anders and Peggy Smith for The Aha! Connection

At our June Lunch & Learn when I dined with Matt Weber, he suggested that I should interview Lisa Torres for an upcoming edition.  He immediately introduced us via email and Peggy and I had lunch with the amazing Lisa Torres last Friday!

Food details first then more about our delightful conversation with Lisa.

Location: Vintage Pizzeria Dunwoody

Lunch Special:  Pizza slice (huge!), salad or soup and soft drink for $10.50

 

Let me tell you what I knew about Lisa BEFORE we met.  She’s the Dunwoody Dinosaur lady…the one who lives on Dunwoody Club Drive with inflatable dinosaurs and encouraging messages in her yard.  When someone filed a complaint that the Dinosaur inflatables were not allowed year round per the City of Dunwoody code ordinances, the community rallied around the Torres family and the City Council and Mayor have since revised the code which has allowed for the Dinosaurs and messages to continue.

I also knew Lisa is a State Farm Insurance Agent with an office on Chamblee Dunwoody Road,(Lisa Torres Insurance Agency, Inc.)  just north of the Waffle House near Georgetown Shopping Center.  I am a loyal State Farm customer and have often considered reaching out to switch my business to her since I’ve never even met my agent nor know anything about him.  She just seems to care about important things and I’d want her on my side if I needed to file a claim….so….I’m probably going to do that now that I’ve actually met her in person.  If she had brought Jake with her I probably would have switched on the spot 🙂

So here’s what Peggy and I learned AFTER sitting down to lunch with Lisa.

Lisa Torres is from a small town near the border town of El Paso, Texas.  Her family is originally from Mexico but she was born and raised in Texas and grew up with two older brothers and very loving and supportive parents.  She started at El Paso Community College and was working her way through school for an insurance company.  She fell in love with the industry because of the service part of the job as she said “Insurance is a way to protect and help others while also making a living”.  Lisa was promoted early and often while only in her twenties and moved to Atlanta with her husband Cesar (who is also in the insurance industry) in 2011.

She was only 22 when she moved to Atlanta and says from there she “grew up fast”.  For many years, she worked 60-80 hours a week, hiring and managing several insurance offices in a large Georgia territory.  As she approached 30, she and Cesar started considering what needed to change to improve their quality of life so they could begin to raise a family.  She asked herself:  “Could I take all that work and energy and passion and put it into one single office only?”  The answer was YES.  She’s now a thriving State Farm agent with 4 loyal employees and she and Cesar have added two boys into their world…..Coby (7) and Rex (4).

Let’s get back to the dinosaurs for a second.  Coby is the one who inspired it all!   He loves Dinos!  During Covid he spent hours upon hours playing with Dinosaurs.  Lisa felt such joy watching him play that she wanted to put the joy out there for others during such a time of uncertainty.  She continues to receive feedback about people who love to go by their house and see their messages of hope.  It started for the times of Covid uncertainty but has continued to be so relevant now.  Dinosaurs is “Dinowoody“.  A way for the Torres family to bring joy and to our community.  

She may kill me for showing her ear piercing jewels but they fascinated me and she let Peggy take a photo.  She called them her “postpartum piercings”.  The dinosaurs totally caught my eye and I had to ask about them!  She had 6 up one ear pierced at the same time.  Ouch.  Needless to say she did not continue that on the other ear! 

Finally, the main reason Peggy and I decided we just HAD to meet this Lisa gal is because of what she did the day Mia Dieguez died from a fentanyl overdose during the school day at Dunwoody High School.  Our entire community was concerned and vocal on social media about this horrible accidental overdose.  But Lisa felt moved to help and jumped into action.  Very late in the day when it was almost closing time she persuaded the Dunwoody Panera to let her purchase soup for the entire staff at Dunwoody High.  The next thing you know people were begging her to let them help with the cost of the soup, bringing drinks, helping unload, and just all sorts of things.  Her idea was inspired by knowing her Mom would always make her feel better with a cup of homemade Mexican tortilla soup.  Lisa explained to us that she feels soup is like a “hug” and she wanted to give all the teachers and staff a hug…so they could be strong and able to support the students on the day after Mia’s death.

She had already paid for the soup but people sent her money anyway to help contribute.  So when not long after, our community was shocked by another tragedy for the Kingsley Elementary and Peachtree Middle communities,  Lisa was able to use those donated funds to quickly purchase white roses for each of the teachers at both schools.   

Lisa was so wonderful to chat with…it is obvious she is always striving to be a better person.  She repeatedly mentione  her sincere gratitude for life, her family, her job, and our community!

Cheers to Lisa, and others like her, who make Dunwoody such a special place to live.

Oh, and she’s hiring at her office.  Read the job description here.