Support Matt, Jill, and Lucy After the Eaton Fire

Please join us in supporting our brother- and sister-in-law, Matt and Jill Colwell, and their daughter Lucy (our niece), who lost their home and all their belongings in the recent Eaton fire.

Matt is the pastor at Knox Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, CA, where Jill also serves as Choir Director. They moved to Altadena in 2011 when they found a quaint, quirky fixer-upper in “Norwic Village”, a tiny pocket neighborhood of Norman Revival and Tudor cottages all built by the same architect in the 1920s. The houses were gathered in a circle around a central island, with a tree and a “well” in the middle. Lucy, age 6 at the time, called it “the castle house,” and decided that a dragon lived in the well. The house had been on the market for some time, as it

needed extensive repairs and had an almost-unworkable floorplan. But the Colwells took on the multi-year challenge of lovingly restoring its charm, adding to its potential, and adapting it for modern needs. Over the course of 13 years, it became their haven and a place of joy as they

created memories together as a family. Lucy grew up there, graduated from Polytechnic School, and started college at Princeton. They planted trees, raised chickens, welcomed friends and family, and hosted church meetings and events. Along the way, they came to

cherish the diverse little community of neighbors on Norwic Place, who gathered regularly during COVID under the tree in the circle to share drinks and desserts and updates on their lives. The dragon turned out to be quite friendly and seemed content.

Lucy was still home from college on winter break for her birthday on January 6, and she celebrated by dressing up and taking some of her best high school friends out for an elegant dinner. They all came over to the house afterward for cake and hung out laughing together in

the living room for hours, with the excessive Christmas lights that had been Jill’s pandemic passion still twinkling all over the house. When the winds came and the power went out the next day, this did not surprise them, but they never imagined that any fire could come anywhere close - not to their neighborhood, so deep as it was in the city, so far as it seemed from the wild canyons up the hill where they loved to hike. But a little after 6:00 pm, Lucy looked out the kitchen doors to the east, saw the sky was bright red, and screamed. She and Jill grabbed the dog, got in the car, and called Matt - together, they were able to quickly gather a few important documents in the dark, as well as a couple of prescriptions which they assumed they’d need for what they thought would be a short evacuation. The next morning they were

devastated when their next-door neighbor sent a video showing that not only their house, but all of Norwic Village, and most of the city around them, had burned to the ground.

The road ahead is going to be a long and hard one, as the Colwells seek to rebuild their lives and support the community around them as it heals. Seven other families at Knox Presbyterian Church also lost their homes, and Matt and Jill continue to encourage donations to the church’s larger efforts to care for all those impacted. But if

you would like to support the Colwell family directly, your donations here will be greatly appreciated and gratefully received.

These funds will go toward items not covered by insurance and FEMA and will be transferred directly to Matt & Jill.