The Eaton Fire was fully extinguished on January 31, 2025. But for many impacted by the fire, the challenges were just beginning.
“The emotional trauma after the fires can take several months to set in,” said Julie Anne Swayze, director of advancement and institutional giving at Foothill Unity Center’s, which received an Eaton Fire Relief & Recovery Grant from Pasadena Community Foundation to provide mental health care, meals, housing assistance, job support, health services, and case management to people impacted by the fire. “We are now seeing clients who are experiencing depression due to the everyday struggles of figuring out the next steps in their lives.”
Supporting Recovery and Resilience for Eaton Fire Survivors
The Eaton Fire is the second-most-destructive fire in California history. At its peak, it forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 Greater Pasadena residents, killed 19 people, and destroyed thousands of homes.
Survivors experienced major mental health challenges. Their stress and anxiety are often exacerbated by financial uncertainty, food and housing insecurity, and other issues stemming from the fire, which can result in lasting impacts on their physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
To ensure a healthy recovery, it’s important that survivors can access the support they need to feel healthy, hopeful, safe, and stable.
The Pasadena Community Foundation made mental health and wellbeing one of our key funding priorities in responding to the Eaton Fire, ensuring that local residents and families can get the help they need. Since January, the Eaton Fire Relief & Recovery Fund has disbursed more than $500,000 in grants to support the mental health needs of people impacted by the fire. Those grants have supported the work of:
- Pacific Clinics, which has addressed the behavioral health needs of California residents for more than 150 years. Pasadena Community Foundation’s grant helped Pacific Clinics to provide support to older adults impacted by the fire who are experiencing serious mental illnesses or substance abuse issues. Many of the people they serve are unhoused, medically vulnerable or do not have support from family or caregivers.
- AltaMed has served as a trusted provider of physical and mental health services for nearly four decades. Support from Pasadena Community Foundation enabled them to expand their behavioral health services in Altadena and Pasadena in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire, enabling them to provide vital, no-cost care to more than 200 women, children and families.
- STEAM:Coders Summer Camp, which provides children with enrichment and activities centered around Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. Because the weight of disasters falls particularly heavily on children, it’s critical that they are able to find support and return to a sense of normalcy. Six months after the Eaton Fire—just as summer began and children faced a long stretch without the structure of school or support from teachers—PCF awarded grants to nearly a dozen nonprofits like STEAM:Coders to offer scholarships to summer camps across Greater Pasadena. This critical window, when youth mental health challenges often intensify, made these camps a lifeline: offering stability, connection, and a safe space to begin healing from trauma.
These organizations represent just a fraction of the dedicated nonprofits we have been honored to support in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire. At Pasadena Community Foundation, we remain deeply committed to post-disaster mental health initiatives and will be announcing additional resources in the near future to further strengthen recovery and resilience across our community.
To read more about how we are helping the Greater Pasadena area recover and rebuild from the Eaton Fire — and to learn how you can help — visit Eaton Fire Relief & Recovery Fund and Altadena Builds Back Foundation.
If you are experiencing mental health issues in the wake of the Eaton fire, help is available. Visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness San Gabriel Valley’s Eaton Fire Survivor Resources Page.
