Organizations from across Santa Monica and beyond have continued to come up with creative and helpful ways to aid victims of the Palisades Fire.
On Thursday, the return of Locals’ Night to the Santa Monica Pier carried extra weight to the fun proceedings, renamed as “Locals’ Night for Fire Relief.” The Pier and Pacific Park partnered with KTLA to host a fire relief fundraiser supporting the American Red Cross, The California Community Foundation and Santa MoniCARES.
Along with the typical Locals’ Night entertainment like children’s musical storytime and the classic car show, the Pier collected gift cards from Santa Monica restaurants and other businesses to donate to those in need. The centerpiece of the Pier, the Pacific Park Ferris wheel, became a beacon of awareness by highlighting donation links to relief organizations viapacpark.com/care or by texting “Care” to 833-402-7341.
Another direct impact of the evening was assisting Palisades Charter High School in fundraising for building replacement and repairs. The school, which was decimated by the Palisades Fire, has immediate needs ranging from restoring technical infrastructure to finding temporary space for in-person instruction. Pali High is taking direct donations atgo.PaliHigh.org/RaisePali.
Future events are also being turned into fundraising opportunities, such as the Santa Monica Rotary Club’s annual Wine Fest. Due to an unnamed donor, the event’s Fund-a-Need featured charity Ready to Succeed was given $10,000; so all remaining funds raised for Fund-a-Need will now go towards the newly-created Fire Relief Fund.
All additional funding for the March 1 Wine Fest, Rotarians stated, will now go towards the Fire Relief fund, including sponsorships, advertisements, auction items, raffle tickets and direct donations. A “preview” for the festival was held Thursday in Seattle, run by Wine Fest auctioneer Larry Snyder, with funds also going toward relief.
“We know that these are unusual steps, but there has never been a disaster in our hometown on the scale of this year’s fires,” Santa Monica Rotary Club’s Ken Waltzer said.
Just outside city limits, the Collins & Katz Family YMCA hosted an event with nonprofit The Change Reaction Tuesday evening, bringing together over 500 families impacted by the Palisades Fire. The Change Reaction was able to distribute checks of up to $5,000 for direct financial assistance, more than $1.2 million given out in all.
“I had this goal for The Change Reaction to actually not be a noun, a thing, my goal is it to be a verb,” Founder Gregory Perlman said. “For people to start thinking about ‘change reactioning’ their money, and that means you’re taking your money to lift up the community. That’s what we’ve been doing for five years … now we’re doing it here, we’re taking that same energy.”
One of the impacted was Community United Methodist Church of Pacific Palisades Pastor John Shaver, who lost his church and lost a church member in the fire. Shaver told the families in attendance to “take a breath” and that while it’s “okay to not be okay,” the community’s resilience can be an example to future generations.
“We can lament now, but as we move through lament and grief, we can grow and be a force that builds to tell the children and the youth of the Palisades, of Altadena, of all of Los Angeles, that people can work together,” Shaver said.
