On the day the fires in the Palisades began, January 7th, Tomer Fine– an eleventh-grader in Calabasas High School’s ASB– contacted the senior class president of Palisades Charter High School, Taylor Beljon-Regen, asking what he could do to help. 

Beljon-Regen told him that many high schools around the area were holding donation drives to support Palisades High School’s student body. Fine, with the help of Camryn Somoza, another eleventh grader in ASB, decided to join the movement and organize a donation drive at Calabasas High School for the students, faculty, and families of Palisades High who were affected by the fires. 

They began to work on the donation drive by publicizing it throughout the school. In the end, they collected four cars worth of supplies ranging from shoes to toiletries to clothes and school supplies. 

“It was a lot more than we expected… the office was filled with donations,” Somoza said. “It almost got too big to where we couldn’t host in there.”

It took them three days to separate all of the items into piles to organize them. From there, four students from Palisades High School’s ASB came and picked them up. The students distributed the donations to other students in their community affected by the fires.  

“It was one of our most successful events this year,” said Fine. “It was a very rewarding experience because we know that this is gonna help a lot of people that lost their homes and belongings.”