His first glimpse of Paradise was a sign.
For Demitri “Demi” Camperos, 31, of Altadena, the giant wooden sign that read “May you find Paradise to be all its name implies” was dwarfed by the 20 or so people standing underneath it, eager to show him a happy welcome.
After all, Camperos was taking his final steps on a 700-mile (on foot) walk from Altadena to another town ravaged by wildfire, raising funds for the Eaton Fire Collaborative, a coalition of more than 150 nonprofits and agencies dedicated to wildfire recovery.
“I was very tired physically, and emotionally, I was just all over the place, but I was also grounded in a sense because the joy of all the people in Paradise was really, really fantastic,” Camperos said.
Paradise Mayor Steve Crowder waited for Camperos to arrive with about 25 people, some bearing gifts, including the town’s police officers and firefighters, as well as Jenni Goodlin and Staci Galla from the Rebuild Paradise Foundation, early supporters of Camperos’ journey.
“I think it was a great thing to do for his community and I believe it also helped him heal,” Crowder said.
Camperos spent two days in Paradise, being whisked around town, visiting businesses and taking tours of scenic spots. He said he heard a lot of fascinating as well as sad stories, echoes of his own Altadena story.
Camperos, a substitute teacher, embarked on his 34-day journey on Oct. 16, starting off from his childhood home on Concha Street in Altadena, lost to the fire.
He got the idea to raise money for the collaborative after realizing he was struggling in darkness after the Eaton fire. He was the heaviest he had been and not in a good place mentally, he said.
“I was not happy. I didn’t really wanna speak with a lot of people unless they themselves had experienced it,” Camperos said. He was even feeling down about teaching.
“I just mentally was taxed,” he said.
Camperos was in a history classroom at a high school and put on this 30-minute documentary about a woman named Doris Haddock, also known as Granny D.
“This little old lady in 1999 was so fed up with campaign finance laws that she decided to walk from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena all the way to Washington D.C.” he said. “It took her over a year to accomplish. She was in her late 80s or early 90s, and I found her story so inspiring and I thought to myself, ‘If a little old lady can do something wonderful like walk across the country, surely a younger man could walk across the state of California.’ I had always wanted to do something for our community.”
Camperos spent about four months preparing for the trek, planning out his routes, and choosing public roads away from the freeway.
To appease his worried family, Camperos also spent every night in either a hotel or at a family friend’s place, which also saved him from lugging heavy tents and backpacks along.
“This was my way of sort of appeasing them and telling them, hey, look, I’m not that crazy, OK, I’m gonna be safe. I’m gonna be comfortable,” Camperos said.
During the 700-mile journey, which Camperos documented on his GoFundMe page and “Life with Scoutmaster Demi” on YouTube, days started bright and early. About 20 stops took him from Glendora to Upland and San Bernardino, Palmdale to Bakersfield north to Visalia, Merced and Modesto and for the final lap, walks through Sacramento, Gridley and Chico before arriving in Paradise in Butte County.
“There are days when you are quite tired and your feet hurt and you know you just wanna call it early or call an Uber or something and just be done with it, so like there are times when it’s physically draining, that’s for sure, but I think the actual answer to what the hardest part is managing everything on my own,” Camperos said. “I don’t have a team. It’s really just me.”
Overcoming physical discomforts such as blisters and all kinds of weather and considering safety considerations on wet or dark roads was nothing to what Camperos said is the highlight of his trip: encountering the kindness of strangers.
“Without a doubt it is the kindness of strangers of total strangers who have no incentive to be kind, right?” he said. “I’m just a stranger. I’m a total random person walking on the road or walking beside the road, but I’ve had so many people over the course of my experience who start with little things like, ‘Would you like a water bottle?’”
Walking in the rain, a poncho-clad Camperos said a woman pulled her car over and offered him a brand new raincoat and asked what else he needed.
“I was just speechless, like, ‘No, ma’am, thank you,’ and she drove off and was on her merry way,” he said. “I was just stunned. It was just a total, beautiful lesson in humanity right there.”
Then there was the retired dairy farmer in Tipton who gave him a tour of his dairy operation and then invited Camperos to a museum gala in Tulare.
He was wearing his “Altadena Strong” t-shirt and begged off. But the farmer lent him a nice shirt and took him to the gala.
“I went to a gala and I just had a wonderful time meeting people and eating nice food and just sharing my story and feeling so overwhelmed in a beautiful way because that was not on my bingo board at all,” Camperos said.
Even now, having driven back home with a friend, and as he celebrates his first Thanksgiving with his still-displaced family, Camperos said he still feels “a lingering sense of catharsis, of euphoria, of like, ‘Wow, I finally did it.’”
Raising $7,688 to help his hometown rebuild was worth every step, he added.
“No way I’d be the same man I am today if I were raised somewhere else,” Camperos said, praising the town’s diversity in everything from race to economics and lifestyles. “I’m very hopeful my town will rebound. It’s hard to say how much will stay the same, but I’m confident that we can reclaim a lot of our spirit.”