USM Community: Rebuild After Fires

Everyone, this is Shannon Lloyd and Mark Cote.

A USM student reached out to Shannon to start a fundraiser for those in our University of Santa Monica family who have been affected by the most recent fires in Los Angeles. Our familiarity with this platform and being in the heart of this community ourselves, it really was in our heart to create this, especially after seeing a recent video of USM student and faculty member Stephen McGhee's home in ruins, shown above.

Your contributions will help us through this challenging time. We’re seeking support to cover unexpected costs and to get those in need back on their feet. These funds will assist with needs that might not be fully covered by other sources of aid.

Your help will allow us to address the many aspects of recovery and support our USM family through this crisis.

We don't think I have to tell anybody the extent of this devastation, and so many of our USM family are right in the middle of it. Our plan is to add names and more images as they come in to this page.

To the members of our community who have been affected, we created this Facebook page to post your story and images related to you or your family's loss of home or business. As the days go on, we will also monitor our community's posts and direct them towards this fundraiser, and add their names as they are reviewed.

I am also reaching out to a few key members of our community to help me vet and distribute these funds. If you or your family have been affected by these fires, we also anticipate an online event to join to tell your story. For now, we want to begin putting the names of beneficiaries on this page immediately. Please reach out when graceful.

Here is an ongoing list of those who have lost their homes, business and property:

Stephen McGhee and Veronica Jo Klein (see this video of their former home)

Erinn Alissa Selkis

Melisa McDonald Danneker

Dan Bienenfeld

Elizabeth Jarosz

Tracy Mays

We are also in a unique space to call forward our USM skills in the most extreme of challenges, while giving ourselves the full opportunity for our human experience of grief and loss. And yet, the context of the work in our community, using everything for our upliftment and growth, is our great strength.

We are asking everyone who reads this to take a moment and call in the Light for all of those affected by this disaster, and to hold all, as our beloved Mary Hulnick says "under a Purple Pyramid of Protection."