The latest club in the local rotary scene has established itself this past month as a key contributor to wildfire relief.
Just two days after the Palisades Fire began in the area, The Marina del Rey Rotary launched its relief and recovery efforts, starting with a donation drive in collaboration with the Santa Monica Windjammers Yacht Club, and followed by the launch of its Heart of the Harbor initiative.
Established last July, the Marina rotary club took advantage of its members coming from different industries and backgrounds, getting the word out to corporate partners and a mass of volunteers for the Jan. 11 donation drive.
“What we thought would be 30 of our members, 30 of (Yacht Club) members, a couple of trucks of stuff, turned out to be significantly bigger,” said Club President Kurtis Sundblom. “We had nearly 1,000 volunteer donors come through, cars and truckloads of stuff being dropped off and delivered … we realized very quickly that this became so much bigger.”
One Marina rotarian used connections within the port’s Fisherman’s Village to start up the Hart of the Harbor pop-up relief center, which has been running every single afternoon for weeks. Since the launch, the center has been a transport spot for nearly 500,000 pounds of essential supplies, taken via U-Haul trucks to distribution points.
Distribution locations included the Boys & Girls Clubs of Malibu, Boys & Girls Club of Monterey Park and Deliverance Tabernacle Church in Pasadena. One essential supply going to these places and more was water, as corporate partner Niagara Water gave 40,000 pounds of water to the Rotarians as well as another 40,000 for Boys & Girls Clubs.
“It’s been a little bit exhausting emotionally, you’re going up and down the roller coaster with all the families who’ve lost everything,” Sundblom said of the past month. “We’re all connected in some way or form to someone who’s lost their home, or they’re impacted … in one way, it’s great to see the community all kind of come together to help, and then in another way, it’s just so sad.”
Helping to give out the goods have been a laundry list of volunteers, including teens from the Boys & Girls Clubs of West San Gabriel Valley’s Brent’s Club program. The teens from the drug and alcohol prevention program have taken on a special project, curating care packages for impacted families and delivering to those who lack transportation.
“They have all lived through the crisis of the pandemic, they all experienced what it was like to go into distance learning and virtual learning, and now they’re all experiencing this crisis,” Sundblom said of the volunteers. “So whether they’ve been impacted directly, or they know their peers have been impacted directly, they get to feel good giving back. They’ve been able to make an impact.”
While Heart of the Harbor will be transitioning into a weekends-only general resource center, it continues to make a massive difference, something that can also be said for the Rotary Club of Santa Monica.
On March 1, the Santa Monica club’s 17th annual wine festival will have proceeds going to its Fire Relief Fund, which has already bought $25,000 worth of supplies for Pacific Palisades residents when they return to their neighborhoods, such as hazmat suits, goggles, gloves and shovels.
Thus far, the club has raised $100,000 from the wine festival, with a goal of $200,000 to go toward the local American Red Cross, YMCA, Boys & Girls Club and Salvation Army. The festival at the Skirball Cultural Center will be a Masquerade Ball with a Venetian theme, featuring wine tasting and both a silent and live auction.
“Rotary has always helped support natural disasters, this one just happens to be in our backyard,” Wine Festival Chairperson Andrea Gressinger said. “We had dozens of our own rotarians affected by it, and it’s (our duty) as part of the community (to help).”
To purchase early bird tickets before Feb. 15, visitRotaryWineFest.org or call 310-801-7599. To get involved with the Heart of the Harbor relief efforts, visitmdrrotary.org.
