Key takeaways
- Providing relief. The Bruin Wildfire Relief Funds and other campus initiatives continue to provide fire-impacted students, faculty, staff and their families with financial assistance, housing and food support.
- Staying connected. Across the board, Bruins have stepped up to offer aid and comfort to other Bruins and local residents through community events, basic needs fundraisers and volunteer efforts.
- Serving Los Angeles. From the federal disaster recovery center at the UCLA Research Park to the work of UCLA faculty and health personnel across the region, the university remains committed to helping L.A.’s communities recover and rebuild after the fires.
Heartbreaking requests for help from students, faculty and staff poured into UCLA in the days and weeks following the outbreak of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires. Like all Angelenos, Bruins suffered the massive impacts of these blazes, which forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 houses and other structures, and claimed the lives of at least 29 people.
Yet in the midst of the tragedy, and in its wake, the UCLA community has rallied to respond, providing essential support for scores of struggling Bruins and other Los Angeles residents. From financial and housing assistance to medical care, food drives to basic-needs fundraisers, and academic support to psychological counseling, Bruins are working to ensure that the campus and the larger community don’t have to face the aftermath of the fires alone.
“We’ve seen so much kindness and care during this emergency,” Chancellor Julio Frenk told the campus community in a video message. “It can be hard sometimes to see that because there has been so much loss, so much grief. But it is by mobilizing those reservoirs of kindness that we actually come together as a community and emerge stronger and ready to rebuild.”
Students in need: ‘This is the time for us all to show up’
Typically, when a student completes a form requesting assistance from the university’s Economic Crisis Response Team, they list their needs and outline particular gaps in their finances. But there is nothing typical about the needs the wildfires caused.
“One student just wrote: ‘My house burned down. I don’t have anywhere to go. What do I do?’ Another wrote: ‘Now I don’t have anything; I need everything,’” said Šerifa Dela Cruz, who chairs the response team, a multidisciplinary coalition of campus partners that has spearheaded fire-relief support for students through emergency grants, loans, food vouchers and housing.
Within a week of the Palisades and Eaton fires, UCLA launched the Bruin Wildfire Relief Funds, providing two avenues of immediate financial assistance — one for students, through the Economic Crisis Response Team, and the other for employees.
And donations to those funds have come at just the right time: Dela Cruz and her colleagues saw their intake case rate more than double in past weeks as students who have experienced evacuations or whose family homes have been damaged or lost come to them in need.
The group has devised ways to meet impacted students where they are, streamlining multistep application processes, thoughtfully helping them secure economic assistance, and working closely with enrollment and financial aid administrators to make sure students aren’t forced to put their education on hold — and that the funds they receive don’t adversely impact their financial aid package.
“Ultimately, of course, there are needs we’ll never be able to fully meet,” Dela Cruz said. “But at the very least, we can work with students to make sure they’re eating and safe and they stay enrolled.”
Across campus, other units have also answered the call, providing mental health counseling and well-being resources, academic support, and free fire-related legal services.
“This is the time for us all to show up for those affected and contribute to solutions,” Dela Cruz said.
For the UCLA Community Programs Office, one of those solutions was organizing regular food distribution events for students, faculty, staff and alumni. Working with partners like the Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center, UCLA Residential Life and the local nonprofit Food Forward to glean food from farmers markets across Southern California, the office has fed hundreds of Bruins and their families at events across UCLA properties. And much of that tireless work, according to the office’s director, Antonio Sandoval Ayala, has been handled by student volunteers.
“We did a distribution with very little notice, but we had a huge number of students who insisted on helping out from 8 a.m. through the evening to make sure it was successful,” Sandoval Ayala said. “They were cleaning and bagging food and showing concern for our community members who attended. They brought so much joy to everyone, from beginning to end.
“Helping each other is such a reciprocal thing,” he added. “This is our community. We’re all going through this together, and each of us has a role in responding.”
Relief for students and employees
“No one has been unaffected by these fires,” said Rhea Turteltaub, UCLA’s vice chancellor for external affairs, who had close family suffer losses in the fires. And for Bruins whose living or financial situations have been directly impacted, including those who have completely lost their homes, she said, UCLA “wanted to be able to provide some kind of relief.”
Since the Bruin Wildfire Relief Funds were launched, donations of all sizes have rolled in, many from Bruins but others from those with no affiliation with the university who just want to help. And as the scale of the loss continues to grow, Turteltaub and her team have continued their appeals. The wider the word goes out, she acknowledged, the greater the opportunities for support, and she encourages all Bruins to share the relief funds link.
“We all want to do our part, and the Bruin family is stepping forward to help one another,” she said. “That sense of connection and community that Chancellor Frenk talks about is really at work in this effort.”
The Hill: A horrific situation brought out Bruins’ best qualities
The sense of community and togetherness was also palpable in campus housing, even after UCLA’s shift to remote instruction during the second week in January.
“We had reports that some remaining students felt isolated, especially with how eerie it was to see campus so empty,” said Abigail Johnson, interim associate director of academics and UCLA’s First Year Experience. “After we made sure everyone had go-bags, we wanted to make sure that no one felt alone.”
Residential Life organized multiple daily events, including regular group lunches, a dozen evening game nights and other gatherings on campus — with Chancellor Frenk and his partner, Felicia Marie Knaul, dropping in one Saturday afternoon.
“It ended up being this really great group of students, with many of them coming back night after night,” Johnson said. “It was so cool to see how, in the midst of all this, while remaining alert, all these students were able to come together and create a sense of normalcy in community.”
Psychology student and First Year Experience intern Temi Bakare helped host some of those events. It was, he said, his way of coming full circle after he’d been shown kindness by the UCLA community when he arrived as a transfer student.
“Everyone is going through so much,” Bakare said. “We all are either directly affected or know someone who is, and I’m grateful I could help support my community. The whole experience showed me how strong Bruins are together.”
For Johnson, the community building efforts of Bakare and others — and their ripple effect — was unforgettable.
“In response to a horrific situation, our student leaders and community members showed their best qualities to create spaces for us all to come together,” she said. “I’m going to always remember that — all of us should.”
Comfort and care for the Bruin community and beyond
“Partnering with the UCLA Volunteer Center, we came up with an idea,” said Amanda Finzi-Smith, director of the UCLA College Corps, whose students perform community service related to climate issues, food security and K–12 education in exchange for fellowships. “The fires started on Tuesday. By that Wednesday, we sent out an Amazon wish list for supplies, and the next week, we put together more than 500 care packages.”
The packages, intended for UCLA community members affected by the fires, contained first-aid kits, soap, lotion, blankets, toilet paper, feminine products and other comfort and care items — all purchased by Bruin supporters and augmented by donations from companies like Smart & Final, IKEA and Pet Food Express. About 80 students, volunteers and College Corps staff assembled the bags and distributed them on campus. The students also created care packages for K–12 educators containing school supplies and nonperishable packaged food, and many have volunteered at the Los Angeles Food Bank and other aid distribution sites — including those listed in the Volunteer Center’s database.
“It’s been so moving to see how eager all our College Corps fellows were to help and how selfless they all were,” Finzi-Smith said. “We found out later that one of them had an aunt whose house burned down. Thankfully everyone was safe, but they lost everything. He didn’t say anything about it to us at the time — he just showed up and focused on helping others.”
That student, Mysaiah Duke, an anthropology major, spoke about his involvement with the care package drive in an interview with the California governor’s office, which funds the UCLA College Corps, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“I’m grateful I can help those affected by the fires. Seeing the community band together to help support those in need with much-needed resources is the most heartwarming,” he said. “One of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s greatest missions was to uplift those in need, and as someone whose family was directly impacted by the Eaton fire, the opportunity to serve and support others feels like the only thing grounding me in these difficult moments.”
The scope of the disaster and the pressing needs of those affected have kept Finzi-Smith and her team working, and they’re looking ahead to ensure they can provide support and services far into the future.
“The entire mission is helping others, and that’s what we do on a daily basis,” she said. “These fires have impacted so many people — our students, the communities we support and beyond — so we will just continue to think beyond ourselves and show up for them.”
‘Showing up means more than we can even understand’
The College Corps effort is just one of myriad and continuing acts of goodwill by student groups, campus departments and other units focused on supporting the community.
UCLA faculty members in nearly every field, from environmental studies and urban planning to medicine, psychology and public policy, have been providing the public and news media with expert analysis and guidance on relief and recovery efforts. Just yesterday, UCLA and Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced a blue-ribbon commission that will leverage that UCLA expertise across campus to create policy recommendations for a safe and resilient rebuilding effort.
The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music hosted auditions for prospective students of the California Institute of the Arts music school, which had been evacuated due to the Hughes fire. And the Hammer Museum at UCLA has joined a coalition of museums, arts organizations and philanthropists in creating an emergency relief fund to support artists and arts workers who have lost their residences, studios or livelihoods.
Similarly, UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association and Graduate Student Association are collaborating with the Volunteer Center and have donated funds for a series of fire-relief service events in the community, and the UCLA chapter of the American Student Dental Association, UCLA’s Middle Eastern Dental Student Association and other student pre-professional organizations have launched essential items drives for firefighters, the unhoused and others in the broader community. New student-directed fundraising efforts begin nearly every day.
UCLA Strategic Communications hosted a “Bruins Love LA” First Thursdays event, giving the campus community an opportunity to thank first responders, sign up to support community recovery efforts and build connections in the wake of the fires.
UCLA Athletics has also pitched in. The UCLA softball team visited with Bruin faculty and staff evacuees staying at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center, bringing with them team-branded T-shirts, sweatshirts and sweatpants. Among them was infielder and third-year undergraduate Jordan Woolery.
“I wanted to let them all know that people have their backs in this time of turmoil,” she said. “This can be a really isolating time for those who were displaced, so showing up means more than we can even understand.”
Assistance for faculty and staff: ‘Creating a home for our people’
In the first days after the fires exploded, UCLA Housing and Hospitality had a twofold mission: plan for a possible evacuation of students from campus housing and help stand up accommodations for Bruins, many of them faculty and staff, who had been forced to flee their homes, some of which had burnt to the ground.
And while the first threat never materialized — which didn’t stop the Housing and Residential Life team and partners across campus, from IT services and transportation to facilities and the administrative vice chancellor’s office, from planning everything down to a tee — the second challenge was present from the jump.
Some uprooted employees called UCLA directly. Some were referred. Others were identified with the help of deans, directors, human resources personnel, specially developed IT tools and targeted outreach, said Sarah Dundish, the housing division’s chief of staff and director of housing and planning. In the end, UCLA was able to offer several options, including lodging in vacant UCLA faculty housing and at the UCLA South Bay campus villas in San Pedro, as well as discounted rates for stays at the Luskin Conference Center, The Inn at UCLA, Lake Arrowhead Lodge and other properties.
Many of UCLA’s faculty and staff members whose homes were affected have found housing elsewhere or have since been able to return to their homes, but for those who haven’t, said Steve Yu, UCLA South Bay’s chief operating and financial officer, the university is doing all it can to “create a home for our people.”
The two- and three-bedroom accommodations at the UCLA South Bay villas in San Pedro are a good, if temporary, fit for employees and their families, he said, and with a gym and other indoor and outdoor amenities on-site, employees will find it easier to connect with and support each other as they begin rebuilding their lives. More faculty and staff who have lost their homes are expected to move in soon. “We don’t know how long they may want to stay,” he said, “but right now, there’s no end date.”
Relief and recovery for faculty and staff have also been helped along not only by the Bruin Wildfires Relief Funds but by a broad palette of resources provided by Campus Human Resources and other units and by the University of California, said Lubbe Levin, associate vice chancellor for campus human resources. These include loans, free legal advice, counseling services, paid administrative leave and a new expansion of the catastrophic leave program that allows employees to accept more donated vacation days from colleagues, giving them the time they need to recover.
Helping L.A.: The FEMA recovery center at UCLA Research Park
Late in the evening on Friday, Jan. 10, Duane Muller, UCLA’s senior executive director for government and community relations, received a call from Mayor Karen Bass’ deputy chief of staff Jenny Delwood, a Bruin alumna, asking for the university’s help. City Hall, Delwood said, was searching for a space to set up a disaster recovery center run by the city and the Federal Emergency Management Agency where federal, state and local agencies and nonprofits could assist the thousands of people affected by the fires. Would the UCLA Research Park work?
“They wanted to send a small team the next day to scout out the location, which is under construction, and get it working as quickly as possible — but even we didn’t realize how quickly that would be,” Muller said.
The following afternoon, about two dozen representatives from FEMA, the mayor’s office, and other government agencies met with Muller, Associate Vice Chancellor for Government and Community Relations Jennifer Poulakidas and UCLA staff members at the 700,000-square-foot property at Pico and Westwood boulevards to discuss logistics and planning. The unrenovated 5,000-square-foot space at the structure’s west end slated for the new center needed to be cleaned, wired for power, and furnished with functioning restrooms.
“Chancellor Frenk, who had only been in office a few days, immediately signed off on the project,” Poulakidas said, “authorizing UCLA Asset Management to bring in plumbers and electricians to make sure it was a safe space.”
Steve Agostini, UCLA’s chief financial officer, and members of his team — including Robert Gray, executive director of real estate services, and Michelle Morales, director of asset management — hammered out the details with FEMA and Bass’ office. And UCLA staff, volunteers and government agency workers did the rest. Within three days, the one-stop site opened, hosting nearly 80 tables providing an array of services, from assistance navigating FEMA aid, insurance claims, tax issues and unemployment benefits to help accessing social services and replacing damaged or destroyed documents like birth certificates and passports.
Bruins have been deeply involved in these relief efforts. To assist with some of the more immediate challenges, students from UCLA School of Law, supervised by Dean Michael Waterstone, have been volunteering at the desk staffed by the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, providing pro bono advice on how residents can navigate the road to recovery.
And the first table to greet the thousands of individuals and families who have come seeking aid and advice is run by UCLA, where Angelenos can learn from Campus Human Resources about current job opportunities at the university, connect with UCLA resources and experts, and even — for alumni — replace their lost diplomas. A hundred new diplomas have been ordered so far.
In an indication of just how committed the UCLA community is, when UCLA Associate Vice Chancellor for Alumni Affairs Julie Sina put out a call for Bruin volunteers to help manage the desk at the center, more than 1,000 people responded almost immediately. Many had to be turned away and directed to other relief and humanitarian efforts.
“We can’t take all the help on offer all at once,” said Poulakidas ruefully. “But there is a long road ahead — many months and years — and we hope that the Bruins, who have an amazing range of talents, will stick with the challenges ahead. These are terrible times, but they have stepped up to help at every level.”
UCLA Health: ‘What’s beautiful and amazing is the acts of kindness’
As the research park was being readied, not far away, at the Westwood Recreation Center, where more than 240 evacuees were being housed in the gymnasium, team members from UCLA Health’s Homeless Healthcare Collaborative saw an opportunity to put their skills to use. The collaborative’s mobile medical units — staffed by doctors, nurses and social workers — regularly serve unhoused populations on the streets and at shelters across the county.
“We’re used to treating people who have a long history of trauma, and our teams are expert at community building,” said the program’s director, Brian Zunner-Keating. “And we just shifted that trauma-informed care lens to care for these folks, who had a different kind of very acute and very recent trauma.”
Most the evacuees they cared for at the Red Cross–run shelter were suffering the respiratory effects of smoke inhalation, but there were others with chronic conditions who had left medications behind during evacuations and some who had sustained injuries as they fled the advancing fires. Over seven days, the UCLA team attended to their needs, providing inhalers and pain medications, getting prescriptions refilled, and, in many cases, simply lending a sympathetic ear.
“Our teams are so great at connecting with people on a personal level, in the true sense of caring — not only ‘what do you need physically,’ but also, ‘I’m here for you, I’m here to listen to you,’” Zunner-Keating said. “I think that’s what a lot of them needed.”
The shelter administrators were grateful for the support and asked the team to return once more following a flu outbreak among residents. Team members were equally grateful for the opportunity to assist Angelenos in a meaningful way.
“We all see L.A. as our community, and we all see the folks that we’re helping as our neighbors,” Zunner-Keating said. “And I think it was just really an extension of that.”
Meanwhile, at nearby Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood — as well as at UCLA Health’s hospitals in Santa Monica and West Hills — medical personnel had been seeing fire-impacted patients since the first days, the majority of them local residents who had come to the hospitals’ emergency departments for respiratory issues.
The overarching objective was to ensure the medical centers and outpatient clinics across the region remained open for patients, said Richard Azar, UCLA Health’s chief operating officer, who coordinated the systemwide response from an emergency command center at Ronald Reagan. With the blazes still active, he said, “we needed to make sure we maintained operations for the general public who were affected by the fires,” as well as for the patients currently under UCLA’s care.
Clinics in Malibu, Santa Monica, Pasadena and Thousand Oaks were forced to temporarily shutter, primarily due to public utility shutoffs, unhealthful air or their proximity to fire evacuation zones. The clinic Pacific Palisades was lost in the fire.
“For the most part, we were able to move appointments to other sites,” Azar said. “We’re fortunate we have a large network of clinics throughout L.A., and we were able to reschedule so that appointments weren’t lost. We provided the care, just at another site.”
What became apparent early on, however, Azar said, was just how far-reaching the impacts of the fires were on UCLA Health’s faculty, staff and trainees. From San Gabriel to the Palisades, personnel accustomed to caring for others quite suddenly needed help as evacuation zones expanded and homes burnt to the ground.
“The impacts were just so great. I was speechless,” Azar recalled. “Seeing it firsthand, how it was directly affecting our team members — just the disbelief in their faces and just feeling their emotions. It was happening so quickly. It was just surreal.”
The command centers UCLA Health had set up at the three hospital locations soon took on double duty as triage points to help contact colleagues who could cover for affected employees and to identify temporary housing options. To supplement the services of UCLA’s Staff and Faculty Counseling Center, the UCLA Department of Psychiatry opened up walk-in clinics for those needing emotional support. Relief resources were provided online, and UCLA Health donation funds were tapped to offer immediate relief.
Azar said he recognizes that the recovery process — for UCLA and the larger community — will be long and difficult, but he has been heartened by the spirit of community and resourcefulness he has seen across the university.
“What’s beautiful and amazing is the acts of kindness, not just within UCLA Health but the entire campus,” he said. “We’ve pulled together, and we really are one big family helping each other. And that is overwhelming. It’s just really great to see. UCLA is truly a special place.”
