Five days after Tropical Storm Eta caused widespread flooding in Miami-Dade, Ana Alvarez’s block in Hialeah was still surrounded by water. Caution tape and police cars blocked off entire streets soaked by ankle-deep flooding. But inside Alvarez’s apartment, little could dampen her spirits.

She considered herself one of the lucky ones. The rain didn’t permeate her walls like it did for others, and her two south-facing parking spots on higher ground kept water away from her and her husband’s only car, a 2007 Kia minivan. She made sure to spread her good fortune, giving her vacant parking spot to a neighbor.

If she’s an optimist, it’s not because things have been easy for Alvarez and her family, who are from El Salvador. She earned $300 a week cleaning homes in Miami Beach, until March when her clients asked her to stop coming due to the pandemic. The family’s financial struggles inspired Nayadé Valbuena, a social worker at the nonprofit Centro Mater, to nominate them for Wish Book.

“For me this family is special,” said Valbuena, who has known them for about eight years. “Above all they’re humble. In their country they were professionals, they went to school. What I always notice is how humble they are, in every sense of the word. They drive a car that doesn’t even have AC and they’re very hardworking.”

Since losing her source of income, Alvarez has stayed home helping her 12- and 5-year-old sons with virtual learning and making sure the family sticks to a strict budget. She’s itching to get back to work, but child care is an issue and she fears COVID-19 too much to put her children back in school just yet.

“Things are a little tight, but we’re getting through it,” she said. The family borrowed a laptop and tablet from her sons’ schools so the two could work from home. They’re relying entirely on her husband Juan Ramon Acuña’s job at a nearby ice cream factory to make ends meet. The job is unstable, especially when the weather cools down around the holidays, but Alvarez said her husband clings to it fiercely.

He found it after weeks of coming home with blisters from job hunting on foot. He wanted a job close to home so his wife could take the family car and not have to spend hours on public transportation.

The couple didn’t struggle this way in their native El Salvador. There, Acuña worked an administrative job at a Fruit of the Loom factory, and Alvarez was an elementary school teacher. But soon gangs began to overrun the town where she taught.

Even with her mask on, the pain on Alvarez’s face comes across when she shares stories of her students — some killed at the hands of gang members, others who reluctantly joined the gangs to avoid the same fate. Alvarez had worked hard to secure her government job and she was hesitant to leave her students, but her family feared for her life. She and her husband migrated to the United States to start over in 2007.

They made it work without a car until their youngest, Mateo, was born five years ago. Alvarez hasn’t forgotten the struggle of getting around Miami on the city’s often unreliable public transportation.

“When I’m on the road I want to pick up everyone I see waiting at a bus stop,” Alvarez said. “Because I remember when I had to do it, sometimes underneath the rain or a blazing sun.”

It’s just one of the sacrifices she and her husband have made to give their kids a better life. When her 12-year-old, Juan David, asked if he could get a job, she made a deal with him: $1 for every time he makes the bed. Her husband grumbles that he shouldn’t be paid for doing something he ought to do anyway. But Alvarez wants her son to understand the value of hard work.

The lesson is not lost on him.

“He tells his little brother, ‘When I save some money I’m going to buy you something for Christmas,’ ” Alvarez said. She herself doesn’t know if she’ll have enough for gifts this year.

As for Mateo, he knows exactly what he wants: superhero toys and a Batman cave. The articulate 5-year-old with an easy grin runs into the room mimicking the superheroes he can talk about for hours. On a recent weekday, he made sure to tell a guest that he just finished helping his mom clean the house.

“When we get a new house my bedroom is going to be Star Wars-themed,” he announces, as his mother chuckles and softly shakes her head behind him at his dreams of a new house.

Alvarez is more concerned with making sure the kids have clothes and shoes this holiday season. Furniture for the living and dining room is another priority for her. She shifts her body on the old couch where she’s sitting, revealing a large gash in the upholstery.

In the dining room, the wooden table that’s too small to fit the family of four wobbles despite her husband’s attempt to fix it. Alvarez is not picky, she said. All of the furniture in their two-bedroom apartment is second-hand, but replacing it would be a relief.

“Above all, we’re focused on making sure our kids are fed,” Alvarez said. “This year will be difficult, but we always make it work.”

How to help

Wish Book is trying to help hundreds of families in need this year. To donate, pay securely at MiamiHerald.com/wishbook. For information, call 305-376-2906 or email wishbook@miamiherald.com. (The most requested items are often laptops and tablets for school, furniture, and accessible vans.) Read more at MiamiHerald.com/wishbook.