How to Help LA
Wherever you are reading this, I hope you are safe and holding your loved ones close
Shitters—this newsletter was supposed to go out to you earlier this week, but like many of you, I’ve spent the past few days paralyzed by the videos and images from Los Angeles. Checking in with friends to make sure they’re safe and have found places to evacuate to, wondering what might become of their homes and their lives. Watching accounts of people who, in a matter of hours, lost everything—who woke up in the safety of their homes, but went to sleep miles away with nothing. Mourning entire swaths of the city that are just gone.
Fleeing your home and not knowing what you’ll come back to is the unthinkable—something I never imagined happening today, to people I know, in a place I once lived and loved for so long. But it is happening, and it continues.
To our readers and my many friends and loved ones in LA, there are no words for how sorry I am. I hope you and your families are safe and sheltered and have somewhere to return when the fires die down. This Google sheet is being regularly updated with mutual aid resources including free food and PPE—if you are need or know others who are, please use and share it. My thoughts have been with you nonstop.
To the firefighters, first responders, and regular people stepping up with courage and compassion to help people in the most devastating time of their lives, thank you endlessly. You are heroes and I hope we all can live by your example. (Buy them a meal via this LA restaurant that has been delivering via bike twice a day.)
And to the many of you who are watching the horror unfold on screens from far away, please do what you can to help today and in the days/ weeks/ months/ years to come. This fund from Vote Save America splits donations to the LA Fire Department’s Emergency Fund and vetted groups on the ground working to feed people in need—if you are able to, please give. There are also several GoFundMe’s for people and families who have been displaced—if you are able, give to them directly. And if you have not already, please think about/prepare the essentials you would need if a disaster hit your area. Even jotting a note in your phone of the supplies and sentimental things you’d take could help if the moment comes. I had never done that before, but now I will be.
As the days go on, I will continue to look for the helpers and try my very best to help them (to that end, if you have groups/ people/ businesses you are supporting in this work, please share them with me and/or in the comments—this collection of resources is by no means comprehensive, and I would love nothing more than to amplify the places near and dear to you to the rest of our community). In the meantime, wherever you are reading this, I hope you are safe and holding your loved ones close.
Love always,
Priyanka
