The s’more bar was finally bubbling at Altadena Girls’ new community space.
A few dozen teen and tween girls, all affected by the wildfires that had ripped their town apart in January, came together for a “cozy cabin” hangout night in downtown Pasadena — some making Christmas ornaments while others applied glittery makeup and temporary tattoos or kicked back on overstuffed furniture.
Avery Colvert, who founded Altadena Girls in January as a 14-year-old, hung garlands and decorations around the 12,000-square-foot complex, beaming that what she’d built was at last open to the world.
The nonprofit was still gussying up the podcast studios, rock band rehearsal rooms and the basement “Sliving” lounge — a young content creators’ paradise decorated by Paris Hilton, who coined the term referring to living your best life.
“We have a video of Avery touring the space at the very beginning, and she was talking about what she imagined would be in each room,” her mother, Lauren Sandidge, said at the event last month. “To be sitting here, and now most of the things that we were just riffing on are reality, it’s a pretty amazing feeling.”
Avery, who started Altadena Girls to gather donations for teen girls who lost their homes in the Eaton fire, distributes items, such as hygiene kits, hair supplies and cosmetics, from a warehouse on Jan. 14.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Of all the charities that emerged in the chaos and triage of January’s fires, none captured popular attention like Altadena Girls. Avery organized her community to raise donations of clothing, hygiene kits and other essentials (and life-affirming pleasures) that displaced teen girls needed — over a million items in all. Altadena Girls became a social media sensation and a celebrity-beloved cause.
As the community nears the anniversary of the fires, Altadena Girls’ flagship project has finally arrived — as beautiful a hangout space as a kid could ask for.
At the same time, the group, like other fire relief organizations, is facing the challenge of dwindling funding and attention.
Altadena Girls raised more than half a million dollars in the first few weeks after the fires. Yet until the hangout space opened, its work had seemed sporadic, and some in the community were questioning whether there would be resources and vision to support Altadena Girls long-term. A new public campaign has yielded just $9,000 of a $500,000 goal in four months.
“We got all this virality and attention, so I think that everything’s been accelerated, including the expectation to have all the answers,” Sandidge said. “I don’t know what next year will look like. We’re working right now around the strategy of ‘can we do all this again without a crisis response?’”
How Altadena Girls started
After the Eaton fire incinerated vast swaths of Altadena, Avery — then a student at the destroyed Eliot Arts Magnet Academy — and her family collected donations of makeup, personal care items and clothing to help teen girls feel like themselves again. Many faced homelessness or displacement from schools and neighborhoods.
They understood the stakes: Sandidge’s family had lost a home in a 2021 Tennessee flood. The family brought the donated items to a Boyle Heights warehouse to distribute, hoping teens would feel rejuvenated rather than victimized.
Alex Wesson, left, and Ella Robinson make Christmas ornaments during the opening party of Altadena Girls in Pasadena.
(Allison Dinner / For The Times)
“They’ve lost everything, and I want them to feel a sense of normalcy when nothing else in their life is normal,” Avery said in January.
Now 15, Avery is eloquent and compassionate. With her mother, who worked in HR, and Sandidge’s former partner Matt Chait, who works in branding and marketing, they built a formidable public presence for Altadena Girls and became a cause célèbre for a grieving Los Angeles.
California’s First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Democratic state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez of Alhambra lauded the effort; Paris Hilton, Gwyneth Paltrow and Mindy Kaling posted about the group on social media. Musicians like Charli XCX, Chappell Roan and Hayley Williams donated memorabilia for a fundraising auction benefiting Altadena Girls and other charities. Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong played a benefit at the Troubadour in support. Meghan Markle stopped by to help in the warehouse. Small donors raised a few hundred to thousands of dollars too.
Less than a month after the fire, Altadena Girls announced it had moved into a 12,000-square-foot office in Pasadena.
Although the space wouldn’t open for another 10 months, accolades for the nonprofit came quickly, at a time when Los Angeles needed heroes to root for. In February, Avery won the Time100 Women of the Year Impact Award.
Altadena Girls became a full-time endeavor for Sandidge and her team, now up to five full- and part-time staff and many volunteers. She left her job in April to run the group with Ruby Birns, an event and content producer whom she met at an early Altadena Girls event.
Journey, 12, looks at her glitter tattoo during Altadena Girls’ opening party.
(Allison Dinner / For The Times)
As of November, the gleaming center was open to teen girls from the San Gabriel Valley (fire-affected families are being prioritized for now). So far, Altadena Girls has hosted events three days a week, including karaoke, Afro-jazz dance classes and movie nights. Stressed-out kids can find calm in specially equipped quiet rooms. The nonprofit plans to open five days a week next year.
Young regulars said they are happy to have a reliable place to hang out with their fire-displaced friends.
“I’ve been here every week,” said 12-year-old Journey, who attends the dance classes. “I lost my school in Altadena, and a lot of the kids moved. But I’ve been able to see some of them at Altadena Girls, and it’s helped me forget about what happened to my school. If you think about bad stuff all the time, it affects your mental health. I feel like this is my home away from home.”
After one recent karaoke night, 14-year-old Lauren said, “We sang the whole ‘Wicked’ soundtrack; it was really fun and so refreshing. We lost our house in the fire right when my mom was starting cancer treatment. It’s really nice to have a break from normal life and interact with people who are so compassionate about what happened and don’t judge how you’re feeling.”
While vulnerable kids have found a refuge at Altadena Girls, in the weeks and months after the fires charitable groups with large public profiles and significant war chests faced questions about their impacts.
Ruby Birns, left, and Lauren Sandidge, Altadena Girls leaders, stand for a photo during the opening party.
(Allison Dinner / For The Times)
Growing pains
The specifics of Altadena Girls’ assets and spending are not public. It only recently became a designated 501(c)(3) charitable organization, which means its annual financial statements are now public record.
Much of Altadena Girls’ significant early fundraising went toward its events, staff and leasing and renovating the Pasadena space (though much of the design and build work was donated).
During the worst months of fire displacement, when families were scrambling for community and services, Altadena Girls produced a handful of upbeat gatherings and donation drives.
In May, the group held Altadena Girls Prom for those who missed out on the rite of passage due to the fire. A back-to-school, free shopping event provided essential items for fire-affected families.
An early announcement said “mental health services to heal from within” would be available, yet Altadena Girls’ does not include clinical therapy on site.
“As we get our bearings and we figure out what our programming is, we’re really excited about the art and music therapy partners that we have,” Birns said. “We’re trying to find ways to do therapy so that it doesn’t feel as prescriptive, and that they don’t feel like they’re being told how to recover.”
On Altadena Girls’ social media, some posts were met with criticisms about the delays in opening the center.
“It’s been over 9 months since the fires and I was just wondering where all the money I donated (and many others) is actually going?” one commenter asked. The organization apologized in response, noting its “coming soon” announcement was “shared too early, before we fully understood how much time, work, and negotiation it would take to bring this vision to life.”
Audrey Bonavich roasts a marshmallow for s’mores during the opening party of Altadena Girls.
(Allison Dinner / For The Times)
Others working to rebuild Altadena also have been frustrated by the pace of progress. Many residents’ initial hopes have soured into resentment.
“I understand that attention spans are short, but this trauma cut through the heart of L.A., and we’re still shell-shocked,” said Ondi Timoner, an Emmy-nominated documentarian whose home was destroyed in the Eaton fire. She’s directed a film, “All the Walls Came Down,” about the blaze and recovery efforts.
“Neighbors are still getting pushed out and people can’t hold on. We’re in an urgent situation right now.”
Michelle White of the nonprofit Neighborhood Survants is part of a collective that opened the Collaboratory, a complex in Altadena where fire victims can get case managers to navigate dozens of nonprofits offering essential services. She said her group is focused on immediate, prosaic needs in the face of a challenging charitable environment.
“The media has largely left Altadena, but the people that need us didn’t leave. I can count on one hand the number of organizations that are still here on a daily basis, and a lot of people are dealing with grief while helping their community,” White said.
Birns said Altadena Girls hopes to connect victims to those services, while also cultivating different kinds of healing for teens.
Paris Hester, left, picks from donated products in a closet at the Altadena Girls opening party.
(Allison Dinner / For The Times)
“We’re trying to provide a place of stability so that kids can continue to come back here and the person at the front desk knows your name,” Birns said.
Challenges moving forward
Altadena Girls’ early fundraising success may make the challenges in the months to come seem even more daunting.
“I think a lot of the other nonprofits will tell you, three or four months down the road, it doesn’t matter how many celebrities showed up on Day 1, they’re not all answering their phone, and not everyone cares about your prom,” Sandidge said.
Altadena Girls did get a recent donation of more than $113,000 from Vans Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, and new donations from upmarket L.A. businesses like Alfred Coffee and Erewhon. The event space is also listed for short-term rentals at $250 an hour with a five-hour minimum — “a beautifully designed, multi-use space perfect for gatherings, performances, workshops, or photoshoots,” as the listing says.
Altadena Girls declined to discuss exactly how much it was paying to lease the community space, but said that it was in the “low six figures” annually.
When asked about current capital reserves for expenses like salaries, rent, event production and community services, Altadena Girls said that information would be included in future public filings.
The scrutiny on what began as a teen’s amateur operation has been humbling, Sandidge said.
People wait in line to enter the opening party of Altadena Girls.
(Allison Dinner / For The Times)
“It was really scary as a family to have so much attention so quickly,” Sandidge said. “People want to know what you’re going to do next, and the perception is that because a celebrity showed up to volunteer one day, that we’re fully funded for the next two years. That’s been tough because people go, ‘You’re fine, why do you need money?’”
Altadena Girls brought on Shannon Silber Shapiro, a former executive of Katy Perry and Matthew McConaughey’s foundations, to be its executive director. Chait, a prominent presence in early events with Avery, resigned from the nonprofit March 17.
“Our visions for the future of Altadena Girls didn’t align in many ways: personally, professionally and financially,” Chait said. “Avery is a talented, tenacious kid with a huge heart. I’m 100% certain that Altadena Girls is only the first of many incredible things that Avery will bring to the world.”
While public and celebrity attention boosted Altadena Girls’ early efforts, corporate and foundation fundraising will be crucial to staying afloat.
In November, Avery appeared at a Town & Country magazine event with Ella Emhoff, the style influencer and Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter. (Markle also interviewed Avery in the magazine.) Whether the teen continues to make Altadena Girls a centerpiece of her future will be her decision. But it will always be part of their family legacy, Sandidge said.
“Whatever I have to do to ensure that we’re successful, I’m going to do,” Sandidge said. “The physical space is built. We’re here. But we have a lot of things we still need to build.”
