Support Urgent LA Wildfire Relief Efforts

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.