Search
The recent and ongoing fires in California have devastated so many people, homes, businesses and communities. In the last week the Camp fire and the Hill/ Woolsey fire have ravaged communities, taken lives and left thousands of people homeless. I am overwhelmed by the thought of such loss and trauma especially when I think about some in our community that have complex behavioral or medical health needs. I am equally overwhelmed by the outpouring of kindness and the strength of the community – nearly everywhere I go I see some type of donation assistance request.
I want to take a moment to appreciate the communities for their acts of kindness. Along with so many other businesses, 15th Street Café in Chico committed to serving free breakfast and coffee to people throughout the evacuations, The Arc thrift stores in Chico and Oroville opened their stores and gave people displaced by the Camp Fire $50 in clothes and small housewares, City Plaza and Downtown Chico did a free spaghetti dinner. In Ventura County Chabad of the Conejo served as a distribution center to collect and distribute clothes, strollers, gift cards, phone chargers, toiletries, vouchers for hotels and motels, etc., Meathead Movers used their trucks to collect donations from the community and make sure they got to distribution centers and several businesses did a “day of sales” in which they donated the proceeds from that day to fire victims funds. These are just but a few of the acts of kindness that came from the community. There are MANY, MANY more acts of kindness and as we are less than a week away from Thanksgiving I ask everyone to keep the fire victims and the victims of the shooting in Thousand Oaks this month in your thoughts and hearts. We are much stronger as a whole community rather than several smaller ones so please if you can consider donating, sharing information about resources or volunteering your time to help rebuild a community in need.
Below are some resources for fire victims. Please share!
California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services
Disaster Recovery Center Butte County
Teresa Anderson, Policy Director, The Arc & UCP Collaboration