A crowd of at least 100 people stood organizing piles of donated clothes, toiletries, diapers and cases of water at a pop-up aid center for fire vicitims at the Santa Anita Race Track parking lot 3 Friday evening as the Eaton Fire continued to burn in the foothills in the distance.
“We started at Brookside with a hot dog cart,” said Jimmy Medina, owner of Tacos Los Huicholes.
Over the past two days, Medina said he had served hundreds and hundreds of people hot dogs and breakfast burritos for free. Medina spoke as he flipped a tortilla for a breakfast burrito – all while we were being recorded on TikTok Live – a cellphone propped up to show the grill, his wife, Vanessa beside him, minding the camera angle.
What started with two hot dog stands at the Rose Bowl two days earlier had grown into an expansive donation and pickup center in the Santa Anita Race Track – all due to the goodwill of people wanting to help – and a few local street vendor business leaders who knew how to mobilize, including a group called Allen G and Friends and the nonprofit, The Christopher Bailey Foundation, which helps combat hunger and provide nutritious meals to the homeless community.
“People had big hearts and we’re helping in any way they can,” Pasadena public information officer Lisa Deridian said.
Word got out and the city had no control over the growth of donations — logistically, it began to impede on public safety personnel.
Once the National Guard and FEMA got called in, the logistics teams needed the extra space around the Rose Bowl, including Brookside Park and the parking lot just south of the Rose Bowl near Kidspace.
“We needed that extra space,” Deridian said. “We needed more space for large vehicles,” explaining how the city used social media and any means possible to get the word out to stop coming down to the Rose Bowl until they figured out a new space.
Deridian said everyone is still in a “response mode.” FEMA crews are currently doing secondary searches of every home or what remains.
“There’s nothing that compares to this unprecedented event,” Deridian said. “It’s a minute-by-minute changing of plans.”
The pop-up donation center was first moved to the Parson’s building parking lot on Walnut Street but that became overwhelmed in about an hour, so the city started calling around to find other large spaces – quickly collaborating with the City of Arcadia to find the space at the race track.
Volunteers help organize clothing at a pop-up donation center in the parking lot of the Santa Anita Race Track in Arcadia.
The race track had already given 1 million square feet of staging area for Southern California Edison and according to Pete Siberell, director of community service and special projects at Santa Anita, the track was able to carve out some space at the southern end of the parking lot – and the way it came together was truly unexpected.
According to Siberell, one of the Klover agency members, Allen Gharakhani, aka “Allen G” showed up with 75 people and numerous trailer in tow on Friday – Siberell showed him some space they could use and as of Saturday afternoon, Lot 3 is a 750,000 square foot lot and the donation center “has used every bit of it,” Siberell said.
“It’s kind of a grassroots thing – it’s amazing. We didn’t know what to expect,” Siberell said.
Arcadia police has helped to help direct traffic and the Santa Anita Race track’s logistics team has helped with traffic flow, lighting and porta potties.
The track was meant to race Saturday but canceled this morning. On Jan. 16, the track has another event and will need the space so the donation center must be moved by Jan. 15, which the grassroots team of organizers knows, and apparently is already looking for their next location.
Christopher Bailey, who started the namesake foundation and the Klover King Agency, a TikTok Live agency that helps creators grow their presence on TikTok Live while also serving food to those in need, is one of the people who made this happen after he heard from Medina what he was doing at the Rose Bowl.
“We went to go support him and his idea to do this and it turned into this. I never expected anything like this,” Bailey said.
“We all met each other through TikTok. We’re all street vendors throughout LA. We all have our own personal businesses where we do street food. Now we’re like a really tight organization,” Bailey said, explaining how once a month, these street vendors work together to make food for people on Skid Row, volunteering their time and amassing supplies to do so through TikTok Live streams, where people watching can donate, or even send in supplies when needed, sometimes sending supplies using DoorDash.
The group of vendors partnered with Soul to Soul Recovery center, which now entirely funds the monthly Skid Row event.
Bailey said he had struggled with addiction for a long time and was homeless until two years ago – after he got into a Tiny Home program, he was able to start his business and through TikTok, his popularity blew up.
I asked how people in need or those wanting to donate could find out about the Santa Anita donation center and Bailey said, “Well we’ve got 1,700 people watching right now,” pointing to his phone which was recording both of us as I agreed to be on his TikTok Live as I interviewed him.
Earlier that day, the Supreme Court heard arguments in D.C. about upholding a law that would ban TikTok beginning Jan. 19, unless the Chinese company agreed to sell off its U.S. business or face a ban.
“It’s crazy they want to ban something that’s changing so many people’s lives – this is only here because of TikTok,” Bailey said.
A long line of cars continued to line up to drop off more donations. People created a “bucket brigade” line passing cases of water being donated off the back of a flatbed truck.
One of those volunteers in the line, Elizabeth Montes de Oca, an outreach worker, had driven in from Riverside where she lives to help out.
“I didn’t have the monetary means to donate, but I do have the time. Anything that has to do with community, no matter where it’s at, especially now that [people] are in need, I’m here, donating time.”
Another volunteer, Marie Augustina Torres, who lives in Duarte, came over to the site to help.
“I have friends who lost their homes right here in Altadena. We don’t know which way this fire can go,” Torres said, noting the location for the donation base was a good one.
“I’m willing to give my time; I’m willing to give whatever it takes to help my community come back from this.”
By Saturday night, the donation center had grown tenfold − the line of cars was still extremely long but now separated into those dropping off and those picking up; volunteers now had a meeting point.
Bailey estimates nearly 5,000 people had come through, and by 7 p.m. hundreds of people stood collecting items under portable floodlights, some carrying garbage bags back to their cars, the smell of bacon and hash browns from Jimmy Medina’s grill comforting the night air.
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According to a Santa Anita Park Instagram post, “Those who would like to donate are asked to use Gate 3 (off Huntington) and follow the instructions from organizers on where to donate.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: California wildfires donation center started on TikTok