Marchelle Sellers and Kathy Selders could only get through so many stories before they had to stop. Reading through the tabulation of what people lost in January’s Eaton fire wrenched at their hearts but also steeled their determination: One man lost his collection of every Beatles album ever released. Another missed his Stetson hat. Could they find a Robot Chicken toy?
One lady yearned for the heirloom Hallmark ornaments she bought for her then-newborn in 1990, then 1991, then again in 1992.
“Baby’s First Christmas.” A cutesy bear in a Santa hat hugging a number “2.” “Baby’s Second Christmas.”
“After every 10 stories telling us what they were missing, I would have to stop, and cry, and my husband would say, ‘We’re going to get it for them,” said Selders, one of the 28 members of the Rotary Club of South Pasadena that hosted a unique distribution event at the Canoe House in that city on Monday, Sept. 29.
During the wind-whipped inferno that was the Eaton fire, what people lost in memories they thought they could never get back.
So when the service club tallied the total of their fundraising this year, a record-breaking $42,500, Sellers, of Arcadia, decided writing a check was not going to be enough.
In seven weeks, the club collected stories from Eaton fire survivors about special possessions they lost in the fire and what matters most to them during recovery. They zeroed in on specific gifts that could meet each person’s story, from a box of Legos to a Canon printer to a crazy quilt from the 1930s made out of fabric scraps. (The survivor lost all 19 quilts in her collection. The Rotarians gifted her with two vintage ones they found on Etsy.)
“We know recovery goes far beyond bricks and mortar,” said Selders, a Temple City resident who is past president of the club and co-chair of the Eaton Fire Relief project. “People lost not just their homes, but also special possessions that gave them passion, comfort and joy.”
Past president David Morales said the club received 948 requests, fulfilled through a “Taste of South Pasadena” event in May, as well as a matching $2,500 grant from Rotary District 5300.
Then there were the partnerships with Book Alley in Pasadena, Guitar Center Foundation, Young Musicians Foundation, Cynthia Abernathy Estates, Arnold’s Frontier Ace Hardware in Sierra Madre, Arcadia Women’s Club, Michaels in Monrovia and Charity on Top Foundation.
Morales said his favorite part of the campaign was giving out vouchers to survivors to buy Christmas trees or sewing machines at Michaels stores.
“We went with one lady to Ace Hardware and she got a set of gardening tools, so she could get started on a new garden,” he said. “She didn’t have a home yet, but gardening gave her peace.”
De Ivett of Burbank, co-founder of Altadena Musicians, connects donors with musicians who lost instruments and audio gear in both Eaton and Palisades fires. They brought flutes, ukuleles, drum sets and all sorts of guitars to the pick-up event.
Ivett said people want to help, and each gifted musical instrument comes with stories.
“And then this gives each person who lost something in the fire a chance at a new story,” she said.
If survivors were hoping to replace a piece of furniture, Sellers and Selders would accompany them to estate sales and pay for their selections.
Rene Barahona still mourns the loss of a chess set he had hand-carved based on his own artwork. The Rotarians commissioned an artist to hand-carve a new wooden set, a gesture that ensures Barahona can continue the chess-playing family tradition that began with his grandfather that he now hopes to continue with his son.
The last memory Alicia Garcia, 59, has of her home is from Jan. 7, of her running down the hallway, hearing flames crackling at the windows and her sons begging her to leave, saying “We can replace everything.”
From the Rotary Club, Garcia and her husband Frank, 62, picked up 25 vinyl records and a new record player. They are still living with his sister, still missing their home on Ventura Street where they raised their four children, and where Frank had lived since he was 5.
Nine months post-fire, the family said they’ve endured nightmare stays at Airbnbs and Motel 6’s and accelerating costs to rebuild. Frank Garcia said the toll of the fire caused his recent stroke and his 50-pound weight loss.
“We went through hell,” he said. “We went through a lot.”
But the vinyl records, especially Smokey Robinson and The Miracle’s Greatest Hits, circa 1968, and seeing his high school sweetheart sway to Diana Ross tunes again, will help.
“I bought so much growing up. I saved my money in high school and bought LPs and ‘45s,” Alicia Garcia said. “Then I had cassettes and CDs. My kids got to listen to these songs, Motown and R&B.”
Music was what brought Renee Townsend, 60, to the Rotary event, too. The 33-year Altadena resident who raised six children in the town, wanted to surprise her husband with some of the albums from his collection that burned in the fire.
“Some of them he never even opened, he would have another copy he would tell us we could play,” Townsend said.
For her high school sweetheart, she was bringing home “some Luther Vandross, Tina Marie, a little Anita Baker.”
“It’s been a blessing to see everyone helping,” Townsend said, saying it’s typical Altadena. “We all love each other. We’re all best friends.”
For singer and songwriter Susan Kane, a 13-year resident of Altadena whose house is still standing but is so lead-contaminated she will need to replace “everything but the studs,” the Rotary event was one way for her community to feel less isolated.
“People say, ‘You should be over it by now,’” she said. “But we’re still going through it. So for the ones who come here and are crying, I just hold on to them.”
For Sellers, the project was certainly harder than distributing gift cards or writing a check.
“But it was also more meaningful and personal,” she said. “It was human to human. We need to remember that.”