In the wake of the devastation left by fires burning in Southern California, UCI students and campus organizations led donation drives to support victims of the fires and recovery efforts throughout January.
On-campus initiatives by individual students and organizations, including Alpha Tau Delta, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UCI and Anakbayan at UCI, organized donation drives to help those impacted by the fires in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. The largest fires, the Palisades and Eaton Fires in Los Angeles County, began on Jan. 7 and have since burned through over 23,000 and 14,000 acres respectively. Over 170,000 people have been issued evacuation orders or warnings, and 27 civilians have died as of Jan. 16.
At UCI, student leaders worked to organize donation drives, shared information through social media and collaborated with mutual aid groups in Los Angeles. Many told New University they were motivated to act after seeing images of the devastation or personally knowing people impacted.
“Many of my friends and family have evacuated and came back to their homes gone,” Mandy Bautista, media manager of professional nursing fraternity Alpha Tau Delta and LA County resident, told New University. “Members of our campus organization, Alpha Tau Delta, have family members and friends who have lost their homes and everything to their name.”
The fraternity held a donation drive on Jan. 9, Jan. 10 and Jan. 13, utilizing their network of members to facilitate community outreach for donations of water, clothing, baby formula, critical medical supplies and other necessities. The organization also coordinated with the UCI Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing to share donation collection information and set up drop-off boxes.
“Given the limited collection window, we are still absolutely blown away by the generosity of our community here at UCI,” Alpha Tau Delta Co-President and nursing science student Mehvish Jenkins told New University.
SJP at UCI tabled near the UCI flagpoles from Jan. 13-17 to collect donations of clothes, food, masks and other items and share opportunities to volunteer. The organization worked with mutual aid groups in LA such as The Sidewalk Project, 7th St. Collective, Mutual Aid LA and SJP at UCLA to coordinate donations.
“A lot of organizations have been capping out on donations just because of the massive amount of support, and so we try to advertise all the different ways in which people on campus can help, and it’s been really successful so far,” UCI student and SJP at UCI member told New University.
Katherine Alissar Tannous, a fourth-year global studies graduate student, collaborated with a group of fellow graduate students to collect donations outside of the Verano Place Community Center and drop off items in LA. According to Tannous, many donations came from community members who noted a lack of donation areas in Orange County and were “excited” to support the initiative locally.
Tannous said that many of the organizations the group coordinated with are at maximum capacity with donations.
“[LA mutual aid organizations] need money more than they need anything else because people need, want to buy their own stuff,” Tannous told New University.
In addition to accepting donations, Anakbayan at UCI, a student Filipino organization fighting for national democracy in the Philippines, hosted an educational discussion on Jan. 14 about the LA fires and climate crisis. In organizing donations, the group coordinated with the Filipino Migrant Center, an immigrant-rights non-profit based in Long Beach, and other Anakbayan chapters in Southern California to support those affected by the fires.
“I also have a personal connection to this fire, because my family was living in the valley, and even despite multiple fires going around them, they were forced to work overtime,” Anakbayan at UCI member Emilio, who requested to omit their last name, told New University. “So it was really seeing the failure of their institutions to protect the people who are living in these places.”
Emilio also spoke on the significance of mutual aid in showing “the power of our communities,” but expressed the need for long-term change beyond mutual aid.
“We should be preventing [these crises] from happening in the first place to, really, a more long-term solution than mutual aid is being organized so that we’re able to attack the root issue of capitalism that drives climate change in the first place,” Emilio said.
Before the January 2025 LA fires, the Los Angeles City Council cut $17.6 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department’s (LAFD) 2024-25 fiscal year budget, and agreed to a $203 million contract with the firefighter’s union to improve wages and benefits. The council also approved $53 million to raise firefighter wages and an additional $58 million for new firetrucks in 2024.
However, in a December 2024 memo from LAFD Fire Chief Kristin Crowley to the Board of Fire Commissioners, the department stated that the $7 million reduction in the overtime budget “adversely affected the Department’s ability to maintain core operations, such as technology and communication infrastructure, payroll processing, training, fire prevention, and community education.”
The Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) budget increased by 7% from the previous fiscal year, amounting to an increase of $125.9 million.
The SJP at UCI member discussed the changes in funding for the LAFD and LAPD to New University.
“When you think about the priorities, where the priorities of the government are, you really realize that we as a people are what we need to rely on,” they said. “We need to rely on each other and we need to show up for each other.”
In efforts to support and expedite recovery for LA communities, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed executive orders aimed at speeding up debris cleanup and home rebuilding, as well as protecting residents from land speculators making unsolicited offers. Newsom also acquired three Fire Management Assistance Grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and has proposed to provide $2.5 billion in funding for emergency response and recovery efforts.
Additional resources regarding the fire recovery efforts can be found through LA County Recovers.
Camelia Heins is a News Intern for the winter 2025 quarter. She can be reached at cheins@uci.edu.
Editor’s Note:The position title of Alpha Tau Delta President has been corrected to Alpha Tau Delta Co-President.
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