Squeals of joy can be heard from the playground at Eagle Rock Recreation Center. A group of 30 children is huddled into groups according to their favorite breakfast item.
“I like pancakes better than waffles,” one child announced.
“Pancakes, pancakes!” they chanted together as they beckoned for others to join them.
There was a sense of normalcy among the kids gathered at the recreation center, despite the upheaval in their families’ lives. A few miles away, thousands of Altadena homes, schools and businesses are in ruins, leveled by the Eaton fire.
The Eaton and Palisades fires destroyed at least 11 public and private schools and some 30 child-care facilities — and thousands of families have been displaced by the torrent of damage — more than 12,000 structures destroyed, including many homes.
Across Los Angeles County, many families whose lives have been upended by the fires are looking to maintain structure and routine for their children and are turning to disaster pop-up camps including Project:Camp. In partnership with L.A. City Recreation and Parks, the camp is providing free child care during the fire crisis. The organization has responded to disasters across the country, including Hurricane Helene in North Carolina in 2024 and the Maui wildfires of 2023.
The organization has set up three camps across Los Angeles County, with plans to open more as needed. This week each L.A. camp has filled its slots hours after opening for registration.
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Organizations like the Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA and Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation are also offering free options for child care. And still other preschools, local businesses and families have taken it into their own hands to create temporary child care in this time of need.
“Younger children in particular, they rely on constancy in their lives to feel like everything’s OK,” said clinical psychologist Karen Rogers, of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Children’s Hospital L.A. “And if their school is not here anymore, if they’re having to live in a different place, then that sense of predictability can be gone for them.”
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Frances, 6, and Harriet, 9, rushed to hug their mom Anne Thornberg as she waited to pick them up from the Eagle Rock Recreation Center. Both girls had spent the last few days playing games and sharing snippets of their experiences with other kids as part of Project:Camp’s trauma-informed approach to care. St. Mark’s School in Altadena, which they both attend, was destroyed by the Eaton fire.
“It’s hard to be 9 and 6 and be home and feel like everything’s uncertain,” said Thornberg, adding that many of her daughters’ friends had lost homes.
Anne Thornberg picks up her daughters Frances, 6, left, and Harriett, 9, who attend Project:Camp, which offers free child care to families affected by the fires, at Eagle Rock Recreation Center on Jan. 15. Frances and Harriett’s school St Mark’s burned down in the Eaton fire.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
It’s the same for Michael Dodge, whose two kids attended Altadena Arts Magnet, which he has learned will be one of the last schools within Pasadena Unified to get support to reopen because it has been damaged by fire. He wants his 7- and 9-year-olds to be around other kids and be able to maintain a sense of security through in-person routine as he and his wife work, volunteer and support friends, many of whom have lost their housing.
“We kind of try to stick to routines,” said Dodge, who continues to take his kids to their usual dance and basketball activities after picking them up from camp, despite the disruptions.
Establishing structure through camps and other activities can make children feel more comfortable when everything around them is changing, said Rogers, who is also advising local school systems affected by the fires. Knowing what’s coming next throughout the day can make a big difference, she added.
Child-care centers like Big and Tiny 10th Street Preschool in Santa Monica are also trying to contribute to stability for families by providing free care to those displaced by the fires. Owner Keltse Bilbao had the first student begin Wednesday, accompanied by her mother to ease anxiety. She’s heard from 15 families interested in enrolling their children this month.
Meanwhile, her own two daughters, whose charter school campus remains closed because it is in an evacuation zone, are opting to attend free camps in Santa Monica run by a local gymnastics center and a taekwondo school rather than attend school online. They yearned for a sense of normalcy, Bilbao said, explaining how eager they were to return to their Brentwood home after evacuating, despite the lack of electricity. She hoped the camps would provide stability on top of that.
“At this point, I’d rather keep them to something in person,” Bilbao said. “If next week we see that this is going to take long, we might have to connect them to Zoom, but I am not crazy about that.”
After the private school her son attends, Village School in Pacific Palisades, burned down, Nicki Hemmat said she and other parents struggled with child care and how to keep kids busy.
Hemmat, who lives in Brentwood but not in an evacuation zone, ended up organizing daily “camps” this week for her son and kids from other damaged or closed elementary schools in and around the Palisades.
On Tuesday, a dozen children gathered on the playground and field at Barrington Recreation Center for basketball. A sports coach, who had offered to supervise the children at a steeply discounted rate, led them in drills as Hemmat and a few other parents exchanged stories of the fire recovery by the picnic tables.
“Normalcy is good for these kids,” Hemmat said. “For a few days there they were stuck to their iPads. We wanted to get them out and moving. And this way, their parents can have some time to fill out any paperwork or applications they need to, like with FEMA.”
This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
