L.A. wildfire diaries: Stories of relief, recovery and resilience

Starting on January 7, a series of ferocious wildfires erupted in the Los Angeles area, burning more than 40,000 acres and causing roughly $14.8 billion in damages. Within a month, two teams of specially trained Mastercard employees hit the ground to support the American Red Cross’s relief efforts, serving thousands of people from all walks of life whose homes and businesses had been reduced to smoking rubble. 

“We all have stories to share, and they are what drive us every day,” says Deann Donohue, an O’Fallon, Missouri-based vice president in the company’s Public Sector Center of Excellence who deployed with the first team of volunteers. “It's providing supplies to the husband whose wife passed the year before who is hoping to find her urn. It’s listening to the fire brigade medic whose parents called him to say news reporters were standing in front of his place as it was burning down.”  

Mastercard launched its disaster relief corps with the American Red Cross in 2019, with 53 employees trained in all aspects of aid distribution, disaster assessment and shelter operations. Today, Mastercard has 687 employees ready to help, some of whom have deployed multiple times, including to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina last year, Hurricane Ian in Florida in 2022 and the western Kentucky tornadoes in 2021.

In the deployment’s spare moments, Donohue and Joe Kaczorowski, a senior vice president for Risk Analytics based in Purchase, New York, shared dispatches from their time in Los Angeles.   

Day 1: Getting the assignment  

It’s a stark 2 a.m. wake-up for the Purchase-based volunteers, including Kaczorowski, to make the flight out to Los Angeles. A group of 20 volunteers from different offices across the U.S. are doing the same for this first deployment; another dozen employees will fly out next week to relieve them.  

Upon arrival, the volunteers join the Red Cross disaster response operation’s stand-up meeting to hear the game plan for the week ahead. “I've already received comments about how they like the energy and collaboration we bring to the mission,” Kaczorowski writes. “So it's exciting to feel welcomed here.”   

At the hotel, it’s bittersweet to meet new volunteers and see familiar faces from both Red Cross and Mastercard offices. Some of these same volunteers were from the Hurricane Helene response in western North Carolina last fall.

“I remember from my very first deployment resettling Afghan refugees in Texas that a woman told me that people talk about time differently in the Red Cross,” Kaczorowski writes. “It's not, ‘How many years have you been involved?’ It's ‘How many deployments have you done?’ It's really inspiring to see the shift in the concept of time within our own Mastercard team with so many having done multiple deployments now.” 

Day 2: On the ground  

With more than four active fires, the recovery work scatters volunteers across the county.   

Donohue is stationed at UCLA Research Center close to the Palisades Fire, where FEMA and other organizations are offering services ranging from temporary housing to mental health care to help reprinting Social Security cards and birth certificates.  

Across the city, Kaczorowski is stationed at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium shelter, which is serving as a Red Cross sanctuary for those in need. The Mastercard team is focused on consolidating residents from multiple ballrooms into a single ballroom to make operations more efficient and ensure an accurate count of shelter residents. That means trying to find those assigned to the cots and, if they’ve already found a new place to move, formally checking them out of the shelter, bagging what is left behind and storing the items in case they return for them.

The enormous ballroom serving as the infirmary also is emptying out, requiring another consolidation. “This involved everything from moving crates of belongings, to wheeling people in hospital beds to the new location and helping them set things up in the new room,” Kaczorowski writes. “Overall, once we got going, there was very little down time.”

Day 3: A heavy heart  

Today, Donohue is at an Altadena grocery store, one of the only buildings left standing in the community. She is handing out PPE kits for those re-entering their neighborhood. “It was emotionally harder today; most residents were going back to just ashes but were looking for anything left,” she writes.  

Kaczorowski is taking on a new role at a new station in the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and spends the day using his Mastercard expertise to help with data and reporting, tracking volunteer assignments and rental cars for the Red Cross. “We talked about challenges, and I even got to see how they thoughtfully handled interactions with distraught clients who came to talk to them.”     

Days 4 and 5: Lifted spirits  

Donohue is back in Pacific Palisades, and it’s the city’s first rainy day since the fires started. She spends the day at the Palisades Recreation Center, a brick building left standing in the middle of ashes, where she meets a couple who grew up in her neighborhood back in St. Louis. “We laughed and cried together — she said it was one of the first times being back that she was able to smile, and it truly touched me.” 

Kaczorowski goes back to consolidating shelter spaces that had started to clear out when the day is happily interrupted by the arrival of rock icon Neil Young, who has arrived to play "Heart of Gold," uplifting the shelter one string at a time, and his wife, actress Daryl Hannah, who brings along two miniature horses. “Everywhere I look,” Kaczorowski writes, “I see our team doing little things all over to create comfort and build bonds — both within the team, but especially with the residents.” 

Day 6 –  The first deployment ends, but the impact is lasting  

As a new team of Mastercard employees makes its way to California, the first team's members are wrapping up their last deployment day, reflecting on their time.

Donohue is reminded why she volunteers: “As I spend the week listening and being present for those impacted, I've realized just how important the Red Cross and their volunteers are. It's helping the brother-in-law of a man with dementia who drove in from out of state to start paperwork for resources, and giving water and hugging the couple looking to see if their daughter’s grave was still standing around the corner. It's about supporting each other in times of need.” 

Similarly, Kaczorowski is overwhelmed with appreciation for having the opportunity to give back. “Volunteering with disaster relief is not for the faint of heart — but the reward for me was more than worth every minute. I met so many amazing people, from all walks of life, all over the U.S. and all with one purpose and passion — to give back. We will be bonded for life, and I can't wait to serve with them all again.”