Here are ways you can help people affected by the CZU complex wildfire

There is no way to make this post impersonal. Good friends from girlhood growing up in Menlo Park, Sally and Michael, lost their beautiful home in Brookdale last Friday. Photos show the house in flames (top) and what it once looked like (below). And an M-A high school classmate lost a home in Boulder Creek that her husband built.

That said, many more lives were touched by the CZU Complex fire. Here are a number of ways you can help.

Menlo Park Fire loaned a fire engine to the Ben Lomond volunteer firefighters, which contributed to saving the Sequoia Center there. Emails Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman: “We have now established a proper fund and mechanism to support both the Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek volunteer fire departments.” You can donate online here. This is an initiative of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District via their partner, Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF), a 501(c)(3) organization, so you donation is fully tax-deductible.

New, unopened donations of diapers, baby formula and school supplies are being accepted through Friday from 10:00 am. to 3:00 pm at the San Mateo County Event Center, Expo Hall, 1346 Saratoga Drive, San Mateo. For school supplies, day backs, pens, highlighters, notebooks, pencil sharpeners, markers and clipboards as well as small bottles of hand sanitizer are needed.

Financial donations can be sent to Puente or the Red Cross. Here is more about what the Red Cross is doing to help.

People who want to donate goods can send an email to Coastsidefirehelp2020@gmail.com, and they will be added to a list of people who want to donate, so that when the need arises they can reach out to them for those items.

Top photo of Brookdale house burning by AP photographer Marcio J. Sanchez (c)2020; second photo house as it looked before fire courtesy of family member