Friday, August 28, 2026

Safety Gear and Bottled Water Headed to Altadena’s Rebuild Workers Saturday

[photo credit: Pasadena Community Job Center]

Community members will gather at a Pasadena day labor center at 8 a.m. before continuing the action in Altadena, organizers say

Community members and immigrant worker advocates plan to gather at a Pasadena day labor center Saturday morning to bring water and protective equipment to immigrant workers rebuilding Altadena, in what organizers describe as the continuation of a human chain of solidarity with them.

The action will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at the Pasadena Community Job Center, 500 N. Lake Ave., and continues in Altadena, according to an announcement from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Participants will distribute water and personal protective equipment and create what the network calls a space of solidarity, music and support. Los Jornaleros del Norte, a band whose members are largely current and former day laborers, is listed among the participants, along with immigrant workers rebuilding Altadena, community members and allies, and immigrant worker advocates.

“As Altadena continues to rebuild, immigrant workers are doing essential work to restore homes and communities,” the network said in the announcement, describing them as the workers who continue to lead Altadena’s recovery and saying the action affirms that they deserve protection, dignity and support.

The job center has been a central pillar of the recovery since the Eaton Fire’s first days. Established by the network, it sits a few miles south of the burn area, and in the days after the fire its organizers assembled relief brigades of volunteers and day laborers who cleared streets, driveways and yards of debris and ash, while the center itself became a donation hub. LA Public Press reported in mid-2025 that the center had helped 174 workers earn federal “disaster site worker” certification and had dispatched them across the burn area for general labor, construction and cleaning.

Advocates have called those workers “second responders.” Palmira Figueroa, the network’s communications director, told LA Public Press last year that “there’s no reconstruction of Altadena and Pasadena without the immigrant workforce.”

Federal immigration enforcement reached Pasadena in 2025. Regional federal operations began June 6 that year, and on June 18 agents detained six people at a bus stop on Orange Grove Boulevard. Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo said the men had been waiting for a bus to Altadena to help rebuild.

Enforcement has continued into this year. In January, dozens gathered with candles at Raymond Street and Villa Avenue after the network reported that several people had been detained nearby that afternoon.

The network has previously organized larger actions on the same theme. On June 13, participants linked arms along Woodbury Road from Lincoln Avenue to Lake Avenue in an action it called “La Muralla Humana,” the Human Shield, carrying hand-painted banners reading “ICE Out. Hands Off Dena” and “Who Protects the Hands Rebuilding Our Homes?”

Neighbors, faith leaders and advocates lined the route for several hours.

The rebuild those workers serve remains unfinished. The permit-data firm Shovels reported that Altadena logged more than $2.78 billion in permitted construction value in the 13 months following the fire, roughly 18 times the total recorded the year before.

Information is available from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network at (626) 799-3566.