2021 Wildfire Relief Fund

The Community Disaster Resource Center

CDRC provides short-term emergency assistance, longer term aid, information, and other resources to low-income, uninsured, and under-insured residents of South Lake Tahoe, Meyers, & Echo Summit displaced by the Caldor Fire to ensure such residents have the basic necessities such as food, clothing, housing, and transportation.

California Community Foundation

The California Community Foundation’s wildfire recovery fund supports intermediate and long-term recovery efforts for major California wildfires, as well as preparedness efforts.

Their 2021 grantee list isn’t posted yet, but in 2020 among the projects they granted were: to design, translate & implement wildfire preparedness trainings for underserved communities such as Latino, Indigenous, and Hmong and Southeast Asian agricultural and food industry workers, people with developmental disabilities, and Deaf communities. They also supported grants for financial assistance and temporary expenses for fire-impacted Native Americans in Northern California and for veteran volunteers to coordinate fire mitigation efforts, among others. See the complete list here:
http://latogether.org/wp-content/uploads/2020-Wildfire-Relief-Fund-Grantees_2.16.21.pdf

CCF does a great job of getting your donation to people in need. They earn a score of 95.47 on Charity Navigator to earn the highest 4 star rating, with an impressive 94.6% of the organization’s expenses spent on its charitable programs (vs fundraising and administrative expenses).

Paws For Life K9 Rescue

Paws for Life K9 Rescue pulls dogs from high-intake (high-kill) California shelters and has California Prison inmates train them to be Therapy Dogs to firefighters to offer comfort and mental health and physical health benefits in this program. Other programs from Paws for Life train service dogs for military veterans with PTSD. It’s a triple-whammy benefit of saving dogs from euthanasia, rehabilitation for prisoners (21 participants have had their life sentences commuted, more than any other program in CA), and providing mental health companions to firefighters and veterans.

El Dorado Community Foundation

El Dorado Community Foundation’s Caldor Fire Fund first provided immediate fire relief to fire evacuees. Their next program will provide funds to those who suffered 25% of more structural damage to their primary residence.