An eighth-grader’s plea after the Eaton Fire redefined disaster recovery for girls

Avery Colvert was an eighth-grader when the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, California, a year ago this month, reddening the sky and destroying nearly 10,000 structures. It was the second natural disaster she’d survived; she was just 14 years old. Her family had lost their home in Nashville, Tennessee, to a flash flood in 2021, before they moved west. 

This time, the catastrophe spared her house, but consumed her school. Familiar with the psychological toll such devastation can take, Avery posted an Instagram call for help tailored for peers who had been left homeless by the wildfire, which burned for over three weeks. She asked for items to help her “friends feel confident and like themselves again!” — “clothes, personal items, beauty and hair care — stuff WE need.” 

The plea, posted just three days after the fire broke out on January 7, 2025, quickly went viral. It has since garnered over 28,000 likes; earned support from celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Charli XCX and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex; and led to the creation of the Altadena Girls nonprofit, an organization that, Avery said, gives girls permission to ask for what they need without apology. 

“I always hear teenage girls say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ like they feel they need to apologize for asking for too much,” Avery, 15, now a ninth grader, said. “At the beginning [of recovery], there was a lot of stigma around asking for help. Girls, after they lost their homes, they felt like it was embarrassing.”

But they don’t need to apologize or feel embarrassed — for asking for help or stating their preferences, Avery said. “It’s OK to say, ‘I like this sweater instead of that one.’ Girls are allowed to have opinions.”

Avery founded Altadena Girls with her mother, Lauren Sandidge. Sandidge said that no one seemed to be focusing on the teen girl experience in the wake of the wildfire, which occurred in tandem with the massive Palisades Fire 30 miles away in Los Angeles. Through a pop-up boutique, Altadena Girls has supplied clothing, shoes, beauty products and hair care to more than 5,000 girls and their families. The organization has distributed more than a million items in total. Last year, it hosted a prom for over 300 girls, and it also provided back-to-school supplies and social-emotional support for 500 more. 

In October, Altadena Girls celebrated a major milestone: It opened an 11,000-square-foot community center offering free programming in nearby Old Town Pasadena. 

What began as a social media request for donations turned into a movement that revealed how inclusive disaster recovery can be when girls are centered rather than marginalized.

Avery didn’t write her viral post with an endgame in mind. 

“I don’t even know what I was thinking,” she said. “I was going through so many emotions at the time that my body just kind of went into fight-or-flight mode. It was like, ‘I’m just going to do this, and this needs to be done right now.’”

Twenty-four hours after her post appeared on Instagram, donations began pouring in, as well as offers for help from stylists, makeup artists and fashion designers. Many of these professionals didn’t just give away products. They also volunteered their time and labor to the fire-impacted girls. 

Sandidge recalled kneeling over, sorting through boxes of donations. “Every time I looked up, there was someone with more donations,” she said. “And then they would stay. They could tell I was overwhelmed, and they would just stay.”

Woven through Altadena Girls is this sense of community. The organization is more than just about distributing goods to teen girls in need. It’s about creating a space where they feel supported. Sandidge said her own family — she also has a son — felt stabilized by this as the wildfire left them uncertain.

“It got us through those moments where we didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said. “The fires were still burning. Everyone felt that way.”

Through its permanent brick-and-mortar space, which opened on October 11, 2025 — International Day of the Girl — the hope is that Altadena Girls can continue bringing the community together. 

“It was really cool, really exciting,” Avery said. “I still can’t believe we did it.”

The center includes music and podcast studios sponsored by Fender; quiet rooms for studying, journaling or one-on-one conversations; a free boutique offering hygiene products, clothing and school supplies; and a gathering area for community events.

The most popular space is the Sliving Lounge, a glittery pink room of nearly 1,000 square feet filled with collaging stations, Polaroid cameras, karaoke, movies, books and vision boards. The name of the space, sponsored by Paris Hilton and her nonprofit, 11:11 Media, is a portmanteau of the words “slay” and “living.”  

“It’s definitely our most popular thing,” Avery said. “Everyone ends up there.”

Avery wanted it “to feel like a girly explosion,” she said. “And they delivered.”

Journey Christine, a 12-year-old actress who lives a block away from the Altadena Girls community center, said she visits most weekends. She called the center “a blessing” to Altadena and Pasadena, parts of which the fire also ravaged. “It’s like my new home away from home,” she said. 

Altadena Girls’ dance workshops — run in partnership with Dance and Dialogue, a non-profit organization that provides intergenerational, multicultural programming — are especially meaningful to Avery. A dancer herself, she has watched girls return to dance night after night.

“I’ve seen them grow. They got really good,” she said. “Dancing is so healing for me, and I’m glad other people get to discover that.”

Youth are not required to participate in any activity to spend time at the community center. “You can come in and learn guitar,” Sandidge said, but the priority is that their basic needs are met —  they’re fed, they’re safe, they’re relaxed. “That’s when people can make good decisions.”

After the fire, Journey has grappled with having classmates, steady presences in her life, move to different neighborhoods and communities. At Altadena Girls, she has been able to catch up with peers who relocated. 

“There are still people who haven’t moved back yet,” Sandidge said. “There are emotional needs that don’t go away just because the headlines do.”

Avery believes the fire didn’t just create new needs. It exposed existing ones, such as a lack of “a third space” for teen girls to meet during the digital age, with phones and social media replacing physical gathering spaces. “For some teenagers, the internet is their third space,” she said. “But I think it’s important that we have a physical space that’s accessible to everyone.”

That Avery’s advocacy led to the center’s creation has felt empowering for Journey. “It’s really inspiring,” the seventh grader said. “It shows other kids that just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference.”

Avery’s belief that dignity is a core component of recovery has led to national recognition. She became the youngest winner of the TIME100 Impact Award, and Senate District 25 named Altadena Girls the 2025 California Nonprofit of the Year. At the 10th Hollywood Beauty Awards, which recognizes the artistry that influences beauty in film, television and on red carpets, she received the Beauty Impact Award. 

Avery’s request for beauty and hair care resonated on a profound level.

“She wanted to give something that wasn’t just socks and T-shirts,” said Pamela Price, the awards’ senior executive producer. “She wanted to give girls something that brought a little happiness during an uncertain time. People might think it’s superficial, but it’s not. Hair, makeup, skincare — those things affect how you feel. Avery was thinking about mental health.”

Journey said simple cosmetic items can make a world of difference for young girls. “People might think losing your favorite lipgloss, eye liner, pair of jeans or hoodie is petty, but it’s not because those things help boost confidence,” she said. “It’s how we represent ourselves. It’s our sense of style. Avery and Altadena Girls get it.”

Avery still remembers the discomfort she felt when she received gift cards in front of her classmates after the Tennessee flood that destroyed her home. “I felt embarrassed. Guilty.” That memory inspired her to prioritize the dignity of teen and tween girls in the wake of the Eaton Fire. 

A year later, her nonprofit isn’t attracting the same level of national attention it did immediately after the disaster. Sandidge said that she understands the waning focus, having lived through a similar dynamic after the Nashville flood. “It’s naturally what happens,” she said. “Everyone comes around. There are headlines. People want to help. And then the intensity dies down.”

But the long-term needs of disaster survivors related to mental health, stability and belonging don’t simply vanish, she said, a notion that research bears out. A 2021 study on California’s deadly Camp Fire in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that direct exposure to wildfires significantly raised the risk of PTSD and depression six months afterward.

As Altadena Girls enters its second year, maintaining its momentum and making it more accessible are top of mind. The center is currently open three evenings a week, with plans to expand to full-time hours. “We want to keep it free,” Sandidge said. “And it’s not free to run.”

The organization is also forming a teen advisory board, a critical step, according to Avery. “It has to be for girls, by girls,” she said. “We need their feedback.”

In time, Sandidge hopes the space allows girls to plan their futures without the shadow of the wildfire and the trauma that accompanied it. “I want them to make decisions based on who they are,” she said. “Not what they lost.”