Alliance Launches $150,000 Canyon Recovery & Emergency Fund: $80k Already Raised From Early Donations

By Doug Suisman

Director of The Canyon Alliance

Today The Canyon Alliance is officially launching the Canyon Recovery & Emergency Fund (CREF) with Canyon residents having already contributed more than half of the fund’s $150,000 goal through early donations. The fund was established by the Alliance in the aftermath of the recent fire and flood to help the Canyon fully recover and repopulate, provide relief to those affected by the fire, and help the community become more resilient against future natural disasters. 

The generosity of Canyon residents in launching this fund, with more than $80,000 already pledged, has been tremendous. The Canyon Alliance will put the funds to good use: setting up an emergency alert system, funding our just-launched Canyon News service, hiring displaced Palisades workers on projects like brush clearance and public space repairs, supporting preparedness efforts like the new fire brigade, and educating our community about the most resilient building and landscape materials.

The majority of the fund will be distributed in the form of grants to the Canyon’s five neighborhood associations, which can apply for funding on recovery, relief, or resilience projects. About 20% of the fund will be retained for unexpected needs during emergencies. 

We hope to reach our $150k goal by mid-April, but we’ll immediately begin making funds available to our neighborhood associations, approving grants on a rolling basis as they come in. Canyon residents and others can donate to the fund by visiting the donation page (the-canyon.org/donate). For more details on the CREF and its uses, see the accompanying Q&A.

The Canyon Alliance is a post-fire initiative of the Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association (SMCCA), a nonprofit charitable organization with roots in the Canyon dating back one hundred years. When you contribute to the Recovery Fund, you’re not only supporting the work of your own neighborhood association, you’re also becoming a paid member of SMCCA. It’s an investment in our community’s public spaces—our streets and staircases, our park and school, our commercial center and our beach. The Canyon will recover from this recent disaster, as it always has, but this time we’ll make the Canyon more resilient for the generations that follow us.