It began early last week with warnings of an impending “wind event,” a particularly severe set of Santa Anas blowing through the Los Angeles area, advisories that due to drought conditions and low humidity, we were at an extreme critical risk for fire weather. By that evening, multiple massive wildfires had broken out across the area, including the still-raging Palisades Fire and Eaton Fires. More than 180,000 people have been forced to evacuate at some point, over 100,000 people have been displaced, and at least 24 are dead. The fires have swept through 40,000 acres in the Greater L.A. area, destroying entire communities and neighborhoods and over 12,300 structures. Winds are picking up this week with more potential destruction in store across the landscape.
If you want to help with the disaster relief efforts in the Los Angeles area, there are dizzying amounts of resources out there for what to do and where to donate and volunteer. While many orgs are still in need of supply donations, others are overwhelmed by donated supplies and don’t have the storage, resources or manpower to adequately distribute. So be sure to check that someone needs what you’re donating before you donate it. When in doubt — give money. If you’re local to Los Angeles and you’re able to do so safely, volunteer.
There are organizations like Habitat for Humanity, the California Fire Foundation and the World Central Kitchen that do great work but also due to their size and profile are getting larger donations from corporations and celebrities — so in this post I’ve made an attempt to highlight a few more under-the-radar organizations where smaller donations can make more of an impact.
Mutual Aid Los Angeles Network
Mutual AID LA is a great starting place for where to provide help — they also give a quick overview of where and how to be of assistance in this instagram post. You can also donate directly to Mutual AID Los Angeles here.
MALAN has established this spreadsheet of resources, listing orgs offering and needing help across all areas, including providing shelter, meals, pet boarding, health or other human services. Aside from giving money, there’s detailed explanations of specific items each org currently needs donated (pet food, diapers, gift cards, PPE, etc.) and updates on current priorities. You can navigate the spreadsheet by neighborhood to access.
Provide Direct Support to Those Affected by the Wildfires Via GoFundMe
A primary way to help people displaced or otherwise impacted by the fires is by supporting individual GoFundMes. This gets cash directly into the hands of people who need it as quickly as possible.
GoFundMe has created a central hub for all verified fundraisers for those affected by the wildfires. Rachel Davies on Substack also has a list of over 700 verified GoFundMe campaigns, helpfully split up by current amount of funding as well as by structure (homes vs. other buildings). You can also check this master spreadsheet, which has a special tab for underfunded campaigns.
These spreadsheets of GoFundMes enable you to help specific groups:
- Musicians
- Artists
- Animators
- Hollywood crew
- Displaced Latinx families
- Displaced Black families
- Renters
- Disabled people
- LA Firefighters who lost their homes
Supporting Black Families Impacted by the Eaton Wildfire
Altadena is known as a haven for artists as well as a historically Black neighborhood. Once a landing place for families fleeing the Jim Crow South, Altadena became California’s first middle-class Black community, a place where Black people could own land, build homes and create generational wealth despite the ongoing crush of systemic oppression, creating a thriving population of Black artists, activists and entrepreneurs. Many of the families who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire had lived in the area for decades, or had their homes passed onto them from parents or grandparents.
Several fundraisers and resources have popped up to specifically support Black families who’ve lost their homes, including LA Fires: The Black Community Urgently Needs Help, a fund started in partnership with CA’s two largest Black law firms and Community Advocate (and out lesbian activist) Jasmyne Cannick.
Friend of Autostraddle Brittani Nichols is collecting and distributing funds in $100 increments to GoFundMes for Black and brown people and renters who have been displaced by the fires. This is a great option if you want to give but are feeling overwhelmed or don’t have the time to go through all the spreadsheets. Brittani will make sure your money gets where it needs to go.
The Reparations Club, a Black women and queer owned “concept bookshop + creative space Curated by Blackness®” are providing a community safe space, PPE and wi-fi and are currently accepting donations of mutual aid funds they will use to direct aid to their most affected loved ones who lost their homes. You can venmo them at @repclub or cashapp $repclub.
It’s also linked above, but this spreadsheet offers specific resources for displaced Black families.
The Lavender Coalition LA
This “coalition of dykes and queers focused on mutual aid and community care” are doing the lord’s work of distributing donated clothing to those in need, due to so many hubs currently overwhelmed by the task of processing large quantities of donated clothes. You can donate to their efforts here.
Pasadena Humane
This nonprofit animal shelter is undertaking “an operation of unprecedented scale and complexity,” working with field teams to actively serve animal needs in disaster-affected areas, tracking animals left behind, dispatching search-and-rescue teams and providing shelter and care to animals in need. They can no longer accept donated items but they are in urgent need of monetary support. You can donate to their Emergency Wildfire Relief Fund here.
National Day Laborer Organizing Network
The NDLON has been partnering with multiple other community organizations (e.g, Radio Jornalera, Pasadena Job Center) to mobilize fire brigade volunteers, distribute food and supplies, lead crews cleaning up debris and distribute donations. Undocumented workers and day laborers are going to be at the forefront of clean-up, recovery and rebuilding after the fire. You can help their efforts serving as an Emergency Center for the day laborer community and providing support to those impacted by the fires by donating.
LaBelle Foundation
Focused on animal care, LaBelle has worked to provide no-cost shelter to animals affected by the fires, animal daycare for volunteers and first responders and distributing supplies— and they’re incredibly transparent and communicative with their donors about where your money is going. You can give to the Labelle Foundation here.
It’s Bigger Than Us
This LA-based non-profit provides critical resources like food, safety and community support to address the core needs of human potential. During the wildfires they have partnered with Perfect Hydration and Baby2Baby to create a distribution hub for supplies like water, food and clothing. You can donate to It’s Bigger Than Us here to help fund things like PPE for volunteers, storage, logistics, transportation to deliver supplies to those who need them most.
Mask Bloc L.A. & Clean Air LA
These mutual aid projects distribute free masks, PPE and air filters to those in the Los Angeles area. You can venmo Clean AIr LA or Mask Bloc LA to support their efforts. They are a swift and effective group —Mask Bloc L.A. distributed over 10,000 masks from January 8th through the 10th.
KTown For All
This all-volunteer homeless outreach and advocacy organization based in Koreatown has been training new volunteers and continuing to provide meals, groceries and other supplies to unhoused people. Currently they’re fundraising to provide laundry services, particularly as everything that has been outdoors in this city right now is covered in ash.
Support Incarcerated Firefighters
This spreadsheet enables you to contribute directly to incarcerated people currently on the frontlines of this disaster. Because involuntary servitude is permitted as a punishment for a crime, incarcerated firefighters are working for between $5.80 and $10.24 a day.
You can also give to the anti-recidivism coalition, and put “firefighter fund” in your donation, and it will go to necessities like new boots, toiletries and other gear. Incarcerated firefighters often have to employ subpar gear for their marathon shifts. Any remaining funds will go towards scholarships for former incarcerated firefighters or individual prisoners’ commissary accounts.
Finally, this is an easy-to-navigate disaster support masterlist serving as a “comprehensive one-stop-shop collection of all essential directories and resources for anyone looking to help, find support, or want to donate.” Let us know in the comments if there’s any specific orgs or people you know who are in need of support.
this is so helpful, thank you.