"I've always given back, but I wasn't really aware of how far I could personally go and get involved and become attached," she said.
In the show, DeCesare leaves her life of luxury in Danville to live on welfare wages in a Long Beach apartment. For a week, she volunteered in the area and secretly looked for heroes who could use financial support for their good work.
"To be able to give money as well as time, I think, is also a huge part of what this experience meant to me," DeCesare said.
In her real life, DeCesare is the CEO and co-founder of Everloop.com, the leading safe social media site devoted to kids under 13. Kids can only friend kids they know, and parents remain in control, with plenty of safety controls in place.
"I believe that you have to be involved, and these parents that say, 'I don't have any idea about the digital world,' -- that's an excuse. It's a must now to get involved in your kid's digital life," she said.
DeCesare's site has more than 200,000 child subscribers. Everloop, she says, prepares them to become good digital citizens of the computer world, but they can have fun, too.
"We have something called goobs which are practical jokes that kids can send each other. So I could T.P. your profile and you could T.P. mine, or throw a pie at me. What we're trying to do is keep kids in that kid experience a little longer," DeCesare said.
DeCesare says being the secret millionaire was money well spent. The mother of three ended up handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars - all from her own money.
See what happens in Long Beach on "Secret Millionaire" on Sunday at 8 p.m. on ABC7.
