Parent-Run Organization Helps Local Woolsey Fire Victims

CALABASAS, CA – A group of parents in the Las Virgenes Unified School District founded LV Fire Relief to raise money and collect physical donations to serve district-area families whose homes were lost or severely damaged in the Woolsey fire, it was announced Monday. Nearly one hundred student and staff member families either lost their homes or have been displaced long-term following major damage, the press release said.

The fire relief fund is accepting financial donations in partnership with the Southeast Ventura YMCA. Donations will be distributed on a need basis, and all the funds will go to the families, according to Jenn Kurtz, a parent with children in three LVUSD schools who helped create the LV Fire Relief fund. The group is also collecting physical donations of non-perishable food, household goods like paper and cleaning products, baby products, and housewares.

“We believe in the power of community,” Kurtz said. “Some of these families have lost everything. Can you imagine being nine years old and knowing that your house and everything in it is gone?”

A vacant office space has been loaned to the effort by the Dale Poe Real Estate group and the Agoura Business Center, the press release said. Donations have come from businesses, Baby 2 Baby, and individual donors from all over Los Angeles, some driving from as far as Long Beach and Pasadena.

Teachers, staff, parents, students and community members have volunteered to organize donations and walk fire victims through selecting items that will help them get through the next several months, the press release said. The space was nearly filled within its first day, and displaced families came to “shop” for clothes, toiletries and other items lost in the fire, according to LV Fire Relief.

One recipient broke into tears due to the generosity. “I’ve been fine up until this point,” she said, “but this put me over the edge.”

Families in need can visit lvfirerelief.org.

Photo: Burned trees surround a destroyed home leaving only the fireplace in Point Dume in Malibu, CA. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)