FJP Featured on the Don't Wait Project Show!

When Lisa Bradshaw contacted me a while back and told me her story and why she had created a show called The Don’t Wait Project, I was so moved, I cried.

When she then invited the girls and I to be guests on the show, I thought, wow! This might help us get the word out about our journals and possibly help us find even more folks to send journals to.

Due to scheduling conflicts and then the pandemic filming was delayed for nearly 2 years, but we finally got to speak with Lisa about the project, and she shared our story on her new show “Life with Lisa”.

Watch here. https://www.ncwlife.com/life-with-lisa-bradshaw-the-fire-journal-project/

Journals in Paradise!

We were so moved to get the following email from teacher Yvonne in Paradise:

Name: Yvonne Holland

Subject: Picture

Message: Hello,
I am a teacher from Paradise, as you may have heard, our whole town basically burned down November 8th. I am not sure how, but we received a class set of your journals. I passed out to students and talked about your understanding of our situation. They really appreciated them. If you email me, I'd like to send you a photo of us using them. (Photo attached here!)

Thank you for the journals
Yvonne

Yvonne Holland
4th grade teacher
Ponderosa Elementary School

Journals Going Up to Camp Fire Kids!

The girls and I had been trying to figure out how to get several boxes of Fire Journals up to the kids in Paradise when we got an email from the social worker at their school, Alvarado Elementary School, here in San Francisco. Jeanette, the social worker, said she was planning to go up to Paradise to help counsel the kids who’d lost everything in the fires and asked if anybody in the school community had anything to contribute. We jumped at the chance to get journals directly into the hands of kids and asked her if she could bring the journals up and give them out to the kids. She enthusiastically agreed and Silver and JJ (the girls’ dad) brought several boxes right over to her for delivery. Paradise, here we come!

Our Hearts are Breaking for Camp, Woolsey, and Hill Fire Survivors

This is a photo I took from the window of my Southwest flight to LA last Thursday… Surreal.

Our hearts go out to all the families who’ve lost so much to the ongoing wildfires here in California.

We live in San Francisco, and even here, over 3 hours away from the Camp Fire, the smoke is thick, acrid, and for our family, quite overwhelming. It’s a constant reminder of the suffering of so many to our North and to our South. California is truly on fire.

Given what’s going on, the girls and I would like to extend the offer of Fire Journals to all who have been affected by these fires - not just the children. Adults need a lot of healing space too… If we create some healing for the adults, that in and of itself will help keep the kids on track.

With that in mind, if you know of anyone organizing evacuees - through churches, community centers, school groups, etc - who might be interested in some Fire Journals, please reach out and ‘Request Journals’ through this website. We would love to get them into the hands of anyone who can use them.

Our First Note!

We just got our first note from a Fire Journal recipient through this website! Here’s what it says:

“My son came home with our fire journal earlier this month. Thank you for such an adorable little journal. He's excited to start writing about our fire story and I'm sure its going to be helpful for him emotionally to write things down in one place.”

Hearts are full.

Fire Journals In Action

So happy to report that the Fire Journal Project is officially in action. Got these fantastic photos and this lovely note today from our contact in Sonoma. Healing is happening. Heart is full.

Good morning, Samantha!

Just wanted you to know that I started my morning at Rincon Valley Middle School delivering the final stack of journals.  RVMS had a large group of students 50+ directly impacted by the fires.  They have a "fire club" led by a teacher who as a child experienced the loss of her home to fire.  Today is the day that the students selected as their memorial time, so I left the journals to be used by the group and also provided to any other students who can benefit.  Thank you again for your heartfelt efforts, and the care that you and your family and friends have shown to our community!  You will be in my thoughts, and I would love to get updates about how your own construction and eventual resettling are progressing.

warmly,

Debra

Thousands of Journals Go Out in Sonoma!

Happy to report that we were able to deliver over a thousand journals to our contact at the Sonoma County Department of Education. Debra Saunders has been helping us distribute the journals to kids in need in Sonoma. Here’s what she had to say:

Hi Sam,

I delivered 1500 journals to Mark West school district. They were the district most significantly impacted by the fires, I believe. They plan to use the journals with their full student body. I also delivered class sets to Proctor Terrace, Elementary in Santa Rosa. Their counselor plans to use them with students who were impacted.

There are several commemorative events taking place in the coming days. Here is a link to some of them.https://www.sonomacountyrecovers.org/fire-remembrance-events/

Your generosity has been so amazing! Thank you again.

Debra