Support Urgent LA Wildfire Relief Efforts

Key Program Highlights & Achievements, Oct. 7, 2025:

OPERATIONAL PROGRESS

• The All Hands and Hearts (AH&H) team continued its smoke remediation work in Altadena, completing 38 residences with AH&H volunteers and supporting a total of 178 homes across partners like the Bunny Suits Collective.
  
  
• Only four homes remain in the AH&H queue, with field operations projected to conclude by October 8, 2025.
  
  
• A HAZMAT and Asbestos Sample Collection Training was facilitated by AH&H’s Safety and Security Advisor, strengthening local capacity.

COMMUNITY & PARTNERSHIPS

• AH&H maintained and expanded partnerships with CORE, NDLON, 24LA, and others.
  
  
• Notably, Operation Bunny Suits—a collaboration between AH&H, CORE, NDLON, and FPP—expanded the NDLON Fire Brigade from two teams to eight, greatly increasing response capacity
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• AH&H also hosted Google LA twice and prepared for a media day with CORE, showcasing strong stakeholder engagement.
  
  
• The Soft Goods and Furnishings Project funded by a donor grant supported over 100 households, including families from the Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena, with over 73% of funds utilized by mid-September.
  

VOLUNTEER POWER & ENGAGEMENT

• Over 10,000 volunteer hours contributed by 151 volunteers, serving more than 18,000 individuals across Los Angeles
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• Volunteers supported:
  
  
• NDLON distributions (9,300 visitors, 24 days)
  
  
• CORE pop-up events (1,900 visitors)
  
  
• YMCA and 24LA Relief Centers, HomeBank LA, and ROWW Distribution Center.
  

Engaging activities such as wellness days, cultural exchanges, and game nights helped sustain morale and community at base.

CHALLENGES

• Program transitions due to key staff departures** (IRM and PD roles ended in early September) impacted leadership continuity
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• Ramp-down of operations required equipment disposition and procedural handovers while maintaining final quality standards.
  
  
• Funding and partnership cycles (notably the wind-down of Operation Bunny Suits in June 2025) required flexibility and strategic adjustment to sustain services through October.

IMPACT TO DATE

As of September 18, 2025:

• 18,000+ people served through combined remediation, distribution, and relief operations.
  
  
• 178 homes completed in smoke remediation, with 189 individuals returning home safely.
  
  
• 1,100 applications for CORE cash voucher assistance facilitated (worth $479,000 in direct funding).
  
  
• $170,000 in goods-in-kind donations distributed.
  
  
• Strengthened community resilience through training, partnerships, and volunteer integration.

DISASTER CONTEXT 

The 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires were among the most destructive in California’s history—burning over 45,000 acres, destroying 17,000+ structures, and affecting 1.2 million people.

AH&H’s timely deployment (beginning January 12, 2025) and collaboration with local groups like CORE and NDLON allowed for rapid, adaptive, and community-centered recovery operations—transitioning from immediate relief to long-term recovery.

SUMMARY INSIGHTS

All Hands and Hearts’ LA Wildfires Response has:

• Transitioned from an emergency operation to a community-led recovery phase,
  
  
• Delivered tangible housing and humanitarian outcomes, and
  
  
• Built capacity for future disaster resilience through training, partnerships, and local empowerment.

The final field phase (through October 2025) represents the culmination of a highly effective, adaptive response model that combined volunteer mobilization, strategic partnerships, and direct community engagement to deliver lasting impact across Los Angeles County. 

PROGRAM SUMMARY

All Hands and Hearts here -  sharing our work helping the residents of Altadena-Pasadena, CA recover from the severe effects of the devastating Eaton Fire in January 2025.  Our vision is to support the community-driven response addressing the immediate and evolving recovery needs, but also fostering hope and stability in the wake of the wildfires and strengthening capacity and preparedness for future challenges.

Whether the stage is Response or Recovery, lessening the physical and emotional impact of disasters on the least-resourced members of the communities is our primary mission.  Currently, AHAH is working with local and national partners to provide: volunteer labour support to distribution centres and local organisations  with support for food and NFI item distribution, client intake support for cash voucher assistance; financial support to

partner organisations executing a range of scopes including funding cash vouch assistance programs, day-worker funding to carry out debris removal in burn zones, mental health support for children; and to develop a smoke remediation scope of work, as a free service, around the substantial need to clean residential properties of ash, soot and smoke damage caused by the Eaton fire.

PROGRAM ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Distribution Support: 

• NDLON Distribution support - 9,300 visitors - 24 days - 683 vol hrs

• 24LA Relief Center - 1000+ visitors - 29 days - 889 vol hrs

• CORE Pop up events - 1,900+ visitors - 3 events - 364 vol hrs

• ROWW Distribution Center - 16 truckloads - 8 days - 265 vol hrs

• LA Dream Center - 450+ visitors - 3 days - 77 vol hrs

• Facilitated 1,100 applications for CORE cash voucher assistance - 28 days, 680 vol hrs
• GEM Warehouse Constructed over 6,000 emergency and personal  kits - 16 days, 454 vol hours

Children and Teen Mental Health Support:

• YMCA Pasadena Sierra Madre 1,000+ visitors13 days383 vol hrs

Smoke Remediation: 

• 75 residences/personal property remediated

• AHAH worked on 16 of the 68  completed remediations

• Assisted 71 individuals to return home safely or relocate

• 76 residences tested

• 939 volunteer hours

PROGRAM CHALLENGES

Base housing - finding short-term, reasonably priced accommodation with space for 20 people in a Southern California market where options are limited and prices high - particularly in the aftermath of a disaster that obliterated thousands of single family homes and displaced its occupants.  Finding a suitable, long-term solution has been an urgent concern for the program team as our current lease comes to an end over the summer.

L.A. traffic -the harsh reality of L.A. traffic has been the reason we have had to scale back our support for organizations outside the Altadena-Pasadena area.  For example: 24LA Relief - a favorite grassroots clothing and goods distribution site we helped to launch is located in Culver City which is well outside a reasonable commuting distance at 3.5 - 4 hours roundtrip.  Driving this distance negatively impacts the volunteer experience, especially for the drivers, and we have had to scale back our days per week to this location.

Volunteer experience - Smoke Remediation is our most complex scope of work so far involving multiple community partners working in lockstep.  There has been a gap, however, in recent volunteer satisfaction scores as the work itself can be tedious.  The program team has taken on this challenge by incorporating different strategies to help connect volunteers with the deeper impact this work has on those we serve.

COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Boys and Girls Club of Malibu

Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE)

Day One

Fire Poppy Project

Global Empowerment Mission

Homebank LA

LA Dream Center

National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON)

Pasadena Boys and Girls Club

Reach Out Worldwide

YMCA Pasadena Sierra Madre

24 LA Relief

OUR IMPACT TO DATE:

17,992 # ofIndividuals impacted (largely credited to the early food and distribution work)

128  # of households served

179 # of unique response scopes of work

2 # of completed interior home repairs

64 # of Residential Volunteers

42 # of Day Volunteers

106 # of Volunteers in total

6,480 # of Volunteer Hours (the equivalent of $226,800 in donated labor at $35/per hour)

CLIENT FEEDBACK:

“Many people have given up, many are still processing. Even if they don’t know how to articulate it, I hope you all realize how much we appreciate you volunteers”.

“Your efforts have reminded people that they are not alone and that they are in fact deeply cared for”.

“I just had no idea what to do or where to go for help. Thank all of you organizations for the Smoke Remediation”.

We are deeply appreciative of the interest in this program from the GlobalGiving community.  Thank you!

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Links:

• Smoke Remediation in L.A.