Thursday, November 20, 2025

Pasadena Community Foundation Honors Local Heroes Amid Massive Eaton Fire Recovery

By EDDIE RIVERA

Mark Mariscal and Candice Kim of Altadena Builds Back Foundation. [Eddie Rivera / Pasadena Now]

Foundation highlights unprecedented community response amid staggering losses

In a packed Mediterranean Ballroom at Brookside Golf Club on Tuesday afternoon, the Pasadena Community Foundation’s (PCF) 26th annual “Local Heroes” celebration unfolded as both a tribute and a reckoning. What is usually a broad salute to philanthropy and civic leadership became, this year, a concentration on the region’s recovery from the Eaton Fire — a disaster whose scale, Foundation leaders stressed, still defies comprehension.

The numbers were brutal—more than 9,000 structures lost; 6,000 of them homes, explained Ivy Lee Keltner, PCF board member, with regards to the Eaton Fire Relief and Recovery Fund.  More than 100,000 people were evacuated, including 10,000 Pasadena Unified students. Nearly 1,900 businesses were significantly damaged and more than 100 were lost outright. Thirteen schools were destroyed or heavily damaged. Fourteen churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples that are now gone.

The Foundation’s response — and the community’s — became the afternoon’s narrative, with recovery the ongoing theme. Hours after the fire broke out on the evening of January 7, board and staff members were calling one another at 4 a.m. By noon, they had launched the Eaton Fire Relief and Recovery Fund with an initial $100,000. Since then, the Foundation and its supporting organization, the Altadena Builds Back Foundation, have distributed more than $19 million for fire relief. A total of more than $72 million has been raised from more than 7,000 donors across all 50 states.

At tables throughout the ballroom, attendees wore name tags marked with coded letters — RR for rapid response, S for seniors, RW for restoring wellness — each category tied to a different slice of the recovery work. Foundation staff called them to stand, wave or receive applause, in waves of recognition that grew into a portrait of the recovery’s scale: mental-health therapists, case managers, childcare providers, senior-care organizations, faith institutions, animal-welfare teams, housing navigators, and youth-program directors.

Their work painted a more intimate picture of the fire’s impact. Senior-care nonprofits described scrambling to replace lost wheelchairs and hospital beds. Mental-health organizations reported surges in trauma, anxiety, PTSD and survivor’s guilt. The Foundation has already dedicated over $500,000 to mental-health support, with “more significant funding” to be announced in the coming weeks.

“Mental health support is not optional. It’s essential. Survivors would need care not just in the moment but on the long road ahead,” stressed Jeannine Bogaard, explaining why PCF made mental health and wellness a core funding priority in its fire recovery strategy.

Childcare emerged as one of the crisis’ most destabilizing ripple effects. A coalition led by Pacific Oaks College and Children’s School found that half to 60 percent of childcare sites in Altadena had been lost, along with more than 1,000 childcare spaces. The Foundation’s $1.3 million emergency grant, combined with additional fundraising stewarded by PCF staff, allowed 42 childcare providers to begin operating again.

Housing — particularly for renters — remains an urgent long-term challenge. Board members described partnering with organizations like Door of Hope, Union Station, Civic Soul, Friends In Deed and Greenline Housing Foundation to deliver rental assistance, motel stays, furnishings and case management.

The Door of Hope program alone rehoused 150 families.

The Foundation’s supporting organization, Altadena Builds Back Foundation, laid out its two largest grants to date—$4.55 million to San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity to rebuild homes for longtime Altadena residents, many of them seniors; and $5.8 million to Beacon Housing for the purchase and redevelopment of a West Altadena lot into 14 units of very low-income affordable rental housing, restricted for 55 years and prioritized for fire survivors.

“Housing is not optional,” said Palin Ngaotheppitak, of Beacon Housing. “It’s not an optional infrastructure. Housing is health, housing is stability, housing is the baseline from which everything else recovery, community dignity can grow.”

The Pine Street Bungalow Court project drew one of the day’s strongest emotional responses. Its former owner, who declined offers from private developers, was recognized for choosing instead to sell the land to Beacon Housing to preserve the family’s deeply affordable units. A Beacon official described the effort as “rebuilding not just housing but the possibility of a future in which we will always know that we are not alone.”

“Money comes and goes, but the relationships are forever,” said The Eaton Fire Collaborative Co-Chair Christie Zamani, emphasizing that the human connections and partnerships forged during the crisis were the most valuable and enduring outcome of the recovery effort.

The Eaton Fire Collaborative — now operating from a new collaboratory on West Woodbury Road — was praised by its leaders, who spoke candidly about exhaustion, grief and commitment. “If one person who wants to rebuild cannot, then we have failed,” Eaton Fire Collaboratory Co-Chair, Brandon Lamar, told the crowd.

Later, the Foundation’s new President and CEO, Khanh Russo, reflected on the organization’s expanding role in a year defined by crisis. PCF now manages more than $260 million in assets and has granted $155 million since its founding in 1953. This year alone, it has raised more than $72 million for fire relief.

“Being here for good,” he said, “means showing up consistently, listening deeply, and staying connected to the people and places we serve.”

“Please keep going together,” added Ngaotheppitak. “We’re rebuilding not just housing but the possibility of a future in which we will always know that we are not alone,”

By the time the final applause rolled through the ballroom, the day’s message had crystallized: the recovery is enormous, ongoing and communal — a long haul that will require exactly what the afternoon celebrated.