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From the Bay to LA, Artists Send Supply Caravans to Fire Victims

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In Oakland, Kevin Goldberg packs his car with supplies for fire victims before driving to L.A.  (Nastia Voynovskaya/KQED)

Early last week, visual artist Kirie Ventura was visiting the Bay Area when the deadly Eaton and Palisades wildfires broke out in her home of Los Angeles. Though her own apartment in the heart of the city was safe, dozens of her friends lost their houses and belongings as the week unfolded and more fires broke out.

Soon, stores in L.A. sold out of N95 masks and water bottles. So she got an idea.

“We’re well-supplied up here in the Northern California area,” she said. “So we might as well take these supplies, and people like me — who are just going to head back down anyway — might as well just make a caravan and just go down there together.”

While up late one night scrolling Instagram, Ventura connected with the West Oakland art gallery Hella Positive. The space regularly gives out clothes and meals to unhoused people, so it already had donations — hygiene kits, diapers, toys, medical supplies — that could be rerouted down south.

In L.A., Ventura had volunteered with the socialist bookstore and community service hub All Power Books. So she was tapped into a mutual aid network that could get Hella Positive’s donations into the hands of those who need them most. Quickly, Ventura began connecting drivers leaving Oakland with L.A. art galleries, coffee shops, bookstores, churches and gyms that have now become unofficial distribution hubs for fire victims.

At Hella Positive art gallery in Oakland, Kirie Ventura coordinates supply drop-offs with mutual aid organizers in L.A. (Nastia Voynovskaya/KQED)

Filling the gaps

From the Bay to L.A., arts organizations and community spaces have become ad-hoc disaster relief centers, thanks to loose coalitions of volunteers who’ve taken it upon themselves to help their communities without government funding or backing from major nonprofits. Emotionally exhausted and underslept, artists and activists are determined to step in and fill what they see as gaping holes in America’s social safety nets.

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“I don’t have faith in the government to step in in situations like this, and when they do, it’s for middle-class and upper-class people,” says Kevin Goldberg, a Vallejo jazz bassist who was raised in L.A. “There’s a very dramatic wealth gap that persists even in times of disaster.”

Two men fist bump in an art gallery full of donated goods.
Comedian Langstyn Avery drops off a crate of food at Ebrahim Leri’s (left) Oakland art gallery, Hella Positive. Leri and other volunteers have been coordinating car caravans to bring supplies to Los Angeles to help wildfire victims. (Nastia Voynovskaya/KQED)

Goldberg was one of seven drivers who pulled up to Hella Positive throughout the weekend and filled their cars with crates of water bottles, non-perishable food items, socks, blankets and other necessities. On Saturday, he arrived at Downtown L.A.’s Super Chief Gallery, where about 50–60 volunteers had developed a well-oiled system of receiving, organizing and handing out supplies.

“One of the musicians who hooked me up with some stuff was saying ‘we’re all we have’ — it’s an often-quoted thing, but it’s just really true in times like this,” said Goldberg, noting that artist communities in the Bay Area and L.A. are tightly linked. Many artists have spent time living in both regions, and countless others frequently make the six-hour drive for gigs and collaborations. Those relationships have now become the infrastructure for statewide volunteer efforts.

“I love L.A., man,” said Hella Positive owner Ebrahim Leri. “I was going stupid to Kendrick’s new shit, you know what I’m saying? I would feel hella dumb if I was just watching L.A. burn and not doing anything to help.”

Volunteers receive donations from Oakland at Super Chief Gallery in Downtown L.A. (Kevin Goldberg)

Multiple car caravans materialized over the weekend throughout Oakland, San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area. “In my post, I was like, ‘Let’s take care of our cousin city,’” said L.A. resident Hana Lee, who organized two supply drives in Oakland, where she lived for a decade before relocating last year.

While staying in Oakland to get away from wildfire smoke, she reached out to her friends who own local businesses — the Korean deli Joodooboo in North Oakland, and the fashion boutique Two Two by Lake Merritt — to set up donation hubs. Through social media, she found a handful of drivers who took four carloads down.

“I think the creative community lives on the fringes of a lot of things already,” she said. “And so when we need things, our first instincts are to rely on each other before we go to these systems that maybe aren’t so super available to us.”

‘The fires aren’t going to stop’

Though plenty of people are energized to donate and volunteer, coordinating these informal mutual aid hubs has been a challenge. As the situation quickly evolves, it can be difficult for organizers to figure out how to effectively distribute the right supplies when and where they’re needed. (Some hubs, for example, have become overwhelmed with clothing donations.)

For a supply drive at Medicine for Nightmares bookstore in San Francisco, poet Soledad Con Carne coordinated with grassroots organizations in the Bay Area (Mask Oakland, Mask 4 Mask Bay Area) and L.A. (Puso SFV, Bike Oven) to assess what’s truly needed in Los Angeles before sending two carloads down, with a third on the way tonight.

Volunteers collected donations for L.A. fire victims at Medicine for Nightmares bookstore in San Francisco. (Soledad Con Carne)

“Since I’ve been in conversation with the mutual aid groups, the grassroots groups, down in the Valley in L.A., they’re talking more about bringing hygiene products and baby food, newborn-size diapers, stuff like that,” Con Carne said. “So that’s been our main focus, as well as batteries and power packs, first aid stuff.”

So far, the fires have burned an area larger than the city of San Francisco and killed 24 people. With wind gusts forecasted for this week, the fires are still unpredictable, and volunteers are planning ahead. Con Carne says some have discussed switching gears from supplies to monetary donations for families that lost everything, as well as to support the low-paid incarcerated people who make up 30% of California’s firefighters.

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As far as what’s next? “I think that’s what everybody’s just trying to figure out right now, because the fires aren’t going to stop,” said Con Carne. “The fact that it even happened this early in the year is completely just out of nowhere for everyone.”

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