Even before returning to campus for the spring semester, students across the 5Cs mobilized to support those impacted by the deadly fires that ravaged Los Angeles County in the first weeks of January.
Student groups have taken the initiative to collect items and raise funds for those who suffered losses due to fires in Altadena, the Palisades and the greater Los Angeles area.
Pomona College First Year Class President Molly Chakery PO ’28 has spearheaded a new partnership between Pomona’s First Year Committee and LA-based nonprofit It’s Bigger Than Us. According to their website, the organization’s mission is to “connect communities with essential resources and support.”
“It’s Bigger Than Us stood out to me because not only were they helping families financially, [they were] providing them with water, food, resources, items for children and for women,” Chakery said.
Chakery has been working with the rest of the First Year Committee since before the spring semester to raise money — something she has wanted to do since she was elected in the fall. Once Los Angeles County went up in flames, she said that it became obvious that fire relief would be a priority.
To help raise more money, Pomona first years are also being given the chance to donate on behalf of their dorms in competition with one another: whichever dorm raises the most funds wins a prize when the fundraiser ends.
Pomona isn’t the only 5C joining forces to raise money. On Jan. 24, Scripps Associated Students (SAS) and Scripps Free Closet hosted an art market for those impacted by the fires. The market was originally suggested by Kimai McPhee SC ’25, with Quinn Dwyer SC ’26 bringing the idea of fire relief to the table. McPhee and Dwyer are both student organizations commissioners for SAS.
The art market featured vendors doing tarot card readings, selling their art and providing color palette analyses in addition to live music and snacks. McPhee collaborated with Chakery to distribute vouchers at the market. Students who donated to the Associated Students of Pomona College’s relief fund with It’s Bigger Than Us could then claim the vouchers for discounts.
“I think the community was honestly more encouraged to engage and attend,” Dwyer said, speaking to how philanthropic efforts attached to the art market may have increased the event’s success. “It was really nice to both be supporting student artists but then also, there was an entire audience that was pulled specifically for the fundraising element.”
This was not the first mutual aid market held by SAS and both Dwyer and McPhee said that it would not be the last.
“We’ve seen the success of those kinds of mutual aid art markets before, so it just made natural sense with what was happening on campus and the community needs that we were hearing,” McPhee said.
At Claremont McKenna College, Claremont Women in Business (CWIB) also contributed to fire relief efforts by collecting items to donate to those in need. An initiative led by Angie Zoric CM ’28, the club originally only sought to collect toiletries; however, after receiving feedback from the community, they decided to accept other items, like clothing, as well.
Although CWIB is still deciding which fire relief-focused charity they’ll donate to, Zoric said that she is leaning towards It’s Bigger Than Us, similar to Pomona’s First Year Committee.
For Zoric, a California native who’s lived in both southern and northern parts of the state, the recent wildfires hold a personal tie. She has several friends, both at the 5Cs and beyond, who have been affected by the fires and she wants to help in any way she can.
“Seeing Malibu completely destroyed, I think it was very much a wake-up call for everyone,” she said, adding that she hopes that local authorities will work to improve fire response efforts in the future.”
Some students in 5C-wide clubs have made similar efforts to aid those in LA County affected by the wildfires. 5C Environmental Justice Club, for instance, advertised a collection drive like CWIB’s, requesting supplies and clothing through their Instagram page and through flyers around campus.
Other students have formed new clubs in response to the fires. Samson Zhang PO ’25 worked alongside several other students to found Clean Air Claremont, which seeks to bring clean air to people in and around the fire-affected areas. At The Hive and off-campus locations, the club has mobilized students and other L.A. residents to raise money and build air purifiers for donation over multiple club meetings.
Now, over three weeks after the fires began, firefighters were finally able to contain the largest of them — the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire — though thousands of residents are still displaced. Claremont student groups, consortium-wide and college-specific, have continued to organize and collect resources for impacted communities.
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