Mark Stefanos
Krista Corbello was working with Caltech students when she got word that her home on the Altadena/Pasadena border was in the evacuation area when all the fires started on the evening of January 7.
“They were looking at the maps and the cross streets, and they were insisting that I don’t go back home. And I said, ‘Well, what if I just go get a go-bag?’ My students were like, ‘No, don’t, don’t go back.’ And so I stayed on campus,” Krista said.
She slept over at a friend’s place that night. The next day, they scrounged together some clothes to tide her over for a few days, then she began spearheading the efforts to transform the Newman Center, a young adult ministry that she directs at St. Philip the Apostle Church in Pasadena, into a fire relief site.
Krista is one of the thousands of Angelenos who donned masks and rolled up their sleeves to support fire victims at resource centers across the Southland, all while fires still rage across the region. Countless others filled their cars with donations and waited in long lines to make sure those resource sites stayed stocked. Organizers we spoke with shared the same story over and over — requests made for donations and volunteers are met with an overwhelming response from a public itching to support. And often, it was those impacted by the fires themselves that still stepped up to help.
Krista spent the rest of the week working all day in the center then sleeping there at night, alongside others displaced by the fire who sought refuge at the church. “I truly think God has been providing,” she said. “I told Him, ‘You multiplied bread and loaves, you can multiply my sleep and energy.’”
Krista Corbello, Director of The Newman Center at St. Philip the Apostle in Pasadena addresses volunteers (Jerome Resurreccion)
In an initial debate within her organization, Krista pushed the idea of turning the Newman Center into an assistance zone — maybe because she was born in Los Angeles but grew up in Louisiana, where hurricanes taught her the importance of emergency relief. That decision has led to big impacts. Soon, the Newman Center had registered nearly 300 volunteers, coming from all colors and creeds, of which only 55% of them belonged to the parish. “People wanted to help each other, even if their ankles were swollen and their eyes were red.”
The needs of the community were equally large. They built a list of 108 families in search of specialized goods, of which 54 are families that have entirely lost their homes. With the support of the church and the public, the Newman Center has been able to answer the needs of all of them. And those numbers don’t include the walk-ins that they’ve serviced who stream through all day.
Krista said she’s been motivated by families who have lost everything but are still showing up to help. Her favorite image from Saturday was that of an eight-year-old girl, who had come with her family in search of support, turning to a woman in devastation and asking her if she needed help taking bags to her car. “I truly see the unadulterated charity in it, and that’s what I mean when I say awe. I see God in it,” Krista said.
So far, Krista’s home has been spared from the fire’s wrath. She’s not paying attention to the fires anyway — she hasn’t lived at that spot very long, and she only has energy to focus on relief efforts. She said the people of LA showing up reminded her of where she grew up. “The South is really warm and generous, and I’ve seen that here right now — it feels like a hug.”
Across the street from the Newman Center is Pasadena City College — the parking lot of which has been turned into a relief site teeming with volunteers, cars of people donating items, and those seeking support. Managed by the YMCA, the request for volunteers was sent far and wide on social media.
Elijah Kaak, a producer from Pomona, heard the call and showed up, and was one of several volunteers manning the volunteer check-in booth. “It’s wild because in Pomona, I feel like I’m almost secluded from everything. We hardly got any winds, hardly got any smoke. But I know that part of my community is here. This is LA. And I just — I can’t not. I have skills, I have hands, and I can’t not be here.”
Elijah estimated that 400 volunteers showed up over the span of three hours on Saturday evening. The logistics of a massive ad-hoc relief and volunteer effort are like building a ship mid-voyage. But Elijah explained that the system they had running absolved the need for lots of management. You show up, you get assigned a location, and then a volunteer there would explain to you what to do. Then, before you leave, you train the next volunteer, and so forth.
YMCA efforts at Pasadena City College, Jan. 11, 2025 (Mark Stefanos)
The PCC site setup included a drop-off and pickup zone for goods on the first floor of the parking structure, as well as an outdoor swap-meet-style bazaar where people can pick out clothes and goods from racks. Everything was organized and people were in good spirits. There were moments when volunteers were unsure of how to be useful, but then a big truck would pull up and throngs would come from different corners of the site to help unload.
It was a heartening sight for Elijah — “To see people coming together in a joyful way is pretty cool. It shows the strength of this community — of LA in general, of Altadena, of the Pacific Palisades. Anybody who hates on LA doesn’t see this.”
PCC was just one of many locations where the YMCA was gathering volunteers to help. In Koreatown, the Anderson Munger YMCA used a stream of volunteers to collect donations from the area, get them sorted, and then distributed them to where they were needed. To transfer unloaded goods from the street to a storage room in the back, volunteers formed a human chain — at one point, the chain was 94 people deep.
The start of the human chain at Anderson Munger YMCA in Koreatown, Jan. 11, 2025 (Mark Stefanos)
Cindy Oliva, operations executive director for the Anderson Munger and Koreatown YMCAs, explained that anyone who wanted to could walk up to volunteer and be put to work. “Once they head to the welcoming table, we assign them to a specific station. And from there, we have staff who are dispatching, and we have another working on logistics, reaching out to different shelters and organizations that are accepting the donations,” she said, “If volunteers are willing to drive, we’ll dispatch them out. We just have a little bit of everything going on.”
Down the street at Love Hour, the Koreatown bar/restaurant co-owned by Mike Pak, Duy Nguyen and Jimmy Han, a team of skilled volunteers took an independent but similar approach to their service. The team, composed mostly of friends congregated by the Koreatown Run Club, transformed a warehouse owned by Love Hour into a makeshift collection and distribution center.
“Mike started doing a drive on Thursday night because there were so many people in the community that wanted to just drop things off,” said Kenzie Floyd, who was helping organize. A day later, they became overwhelmed with donations, so they opened up the warehouse and put on their logistics hats.
“I found that the biggest challenge, the biggest gap, is we’ve got the inventory, we have the manpower — but who needs what, and how do we get it to the right people?” added Angie Han, who was also taking a lead.
A team of volunteers at Love Hour in Koreatown having a debrief, Jan. 11, 2025 (Mark Stefanos)
The team explained that instead of spinning their wheels, they were giving themselves time Saturday afternoon to recalibrate to make sure they were making the biggest impact. “Basically, we decided, let’s get 10, 15 people on just looking through the documents of who actually is in need of what,” Angie said. They were then distributing goods directly to fire stations, organizations like the National Guard, and families in need.
One thing they didn’t have to worry about was the outpouring of support from their community. “Last night, we were like, maybe we could use six trucks or something tomorrow. Let’s make a Google Form. When we woke up this morning, there were 300-something people who had signed up their trucks in the form,” said Kenzie. “Which is amazing. It’s such a good problem to have.”
The Dream Center in Echo Park was also deploying a reconfiguration when we visited on Sunday, the fourth day of their operation.
“We just changed the entire logistics of our line today, and I just got a text that said, ‘Looks like the average wait time for cars is 35 minutes to get loaded up,’” Aaron Befort, assistant to Dream Center founder Matthew Barnett, told us, “Yesterday, [it took] two hours, three hours for cars, so now we’re down to 35 minutes. I think we finally did it.”
The Dream Center in Echo Park, Jan 12, 2025 (Mark Stefanos)
The operation was indeed a well-oiled machine. The Echo Park nonprofit, housed at what was once the site of Queen of Angels Hospital, has transformed into a loud, bustling city of relief efforts.
“Yesterday was our third day, and we had over 1,200 local Angelenos come and help us sort through the donations of 150,000 pieces of clothing. We’ve had over 350 pallets dropped on this campus in the last four days of every single kind of relief and aid you can think of,” Aaron said. “We are so thankful for our local Angeleno volunteers that showed up to help sort, package, and send it right out in the relief line.”
Cars backed up on the surrounding streets, but volunteers were stationed at most intersections, keeping lines flowing. Other volunteers wrote down on paper the needs of each vehicle — what they were delivering if they were donating, or what they were in need of if they were picking up — then stuck that paper on the car’s windshield. Once a car enters the long, efficiently laid out courtyard, a team of volunteers would quickly fulfill the slip like a to-go order, either forming human chains to unload donations, or filling trash bags and stacking trunks with three to five days of supplies.
Cars lined up outside the Dream Center in Echo Park with slips on their windshield noting what they’re donating or needing, Jan 12, 2025 (Mark Stefanos)
Like the team at Love Hour, Aaron also advised those looking to help to seek out an organization or family’s specific list of needs, instead of just donating willy-nilly. And he said the Dream Center is committed to helping this cause for the long haul — “As soon as the efforts here are done on our Dream Center campus, our efforts are going to shift immediately to help go to the disaster spots.”
“I’ve lived on this campus in Echo Park for 22 years, and we have never seen the type of call to action from Los Angeles as we’ve seen this week. It’s been so unified. The love from everybody of just wanting to help somebody,” Aaron said. “Our founder, Matthew Barnett, is using the tagline, ‘we see the displaced helping the displaced everywhere right now,’ this week during the Los Angeles fires — and that has brought us to tears, and it’s brought us to our knees in humbleness. But then we have to get right back up on our feet because there’s a lot of work to be done.”
A lasting concern that kept popping up in conversations with resource providers — how long will all this last? Once the story was out of the headlines, would people still show up to help and donate?
But in speaking with many of the fire victims seeking resources, they told me they’re taking it day by day. And these days, they are overwhelmed with the love and support of the LA community.
Contact the Newman Center at St. Philip the Apostle Church at StPhilipTheApostle.org and @newmanpasadena on Instagram.
St. Philip the Apostle Church — links for school families/staff & parish staff GoFundMe pages as well as the donation link which can be found on their homepage under Eaton Relief Parish Response section.
Contact the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles at ymcala.org.
Contact Love Hour at love-hour.com and @lovehourlosangeles on Instagram.
Contact the Dream Center at dreamcenter.org and @ladreamcenter on Instagram.