"We never thought we'd be experiencing fire ... we thought that, you know, this isn't going to happen here." - JD

On Aug 18 2020, JD looked at her Santa Cruz house as she left and thought, “‘that's probably not gonna be here when I come back’ ... we just said goodbye and left.”  

Explosive wildfires had given her less than 24 hours to get ready to go. She returned to her house five weeks later. Seven of her neighbors weren’t as lucky. Their homes were lost.

Fortunately, she was in a community that had grown stronger and learned to work together over the course of 40 years of earthquakes, floods and mudslides. “And we were working with all of our neighbors and all of our neighbors are talking. So we have almost, about 40-year experience of having a hill list and an emergency list.” 

JD’s community has had 40 years to prepare. Other communities only have months. Unprepared communities may have less than 24 hours.

Help five communities to prepare for 2022 wildfires. Without 40 years of earthquakes, floods and mudslides.

Our immersive learning experiences combine traditional disaster simulations with discovery-based experiential learning. Events are engaging, fun, and help local communities prepare for disaster and increase social resilience.

Your support today will enable us to test and refine a new wildfire learning experience in 3-5 small California communities. When ready, this learning experience will help many more communities to become more like JDs – without 40 years of earthquakes, floods and mudslides.

Learn more about the wildfire project and our work here.

*If you would like to donate by check, please make it payable to our fiscal sponsor, Social Good Fund, and send it to Creative Crisis Leadership, 430 Olive Av, Palo Alto CA 94306..