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Gathered in a multipurpose room at New Revelation Missionary Baptist Church in Pasadena last week, LMU Loyola Law School Professor Eric Miller and more than 50 student and alumni volunteers listened as those impacted by the Altadena, California-area wildfires relayed their heart-wrenching stories of loss. Then they offered something new: hope.
The Loyola Anti-Racism Center (LARC) effort was one of several efforts by LMU Loyola Law School faculty, students, alumni, and staff to support victims of the recent Southern California wildfires. LARC is helping families complete critical FEMA, insurance, loan, and other paperwork necessary to recover from the Eaton fire. Over the past two weeks, students, faculty, staff, and alumni have volunteered to meet with wildfire victims at the Pasadena church, Pasadena City College and FAME Renaissance Center in South Los Angeles to help them complete FEMA paperwork and discuss their options for future insurance claims. KABC-TV covered the LARC efforts (contains footage of fires.)
Elsewhere, LLS professors organized a virtual training session on FEMA issues, and the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Policy Initiative is compiling resources to prevent wildfire-related human trafficking of displaced workers. The law school has compiled a list of ways to help.
Miller, LARC co-director, said the FEMA clinic aims to help families understand the short-term resources and support available to them and the process for applying for federal aid as they figure out what to do next.
“Too often, these sorts of disasters break up vulnerable and especially Black communities,” Miller said. “LARC will be a partner with the survivors of the Eaton fire to make sure they protect the generations of efforts they and their families have put in to build and now rebuild that community.”
LARC Fellow Melody Wilson ’25, who volunteered at the FEMA clinic on Jan. 17, 2025, said part of what attracted her to LLS was its commitment to supporting diverse communities.
“It’s really important to me to continue to advance the mission to assist marginalized communities in connecting the law with the community,” Wilson said. “Now is the perfect opportunity to take those skills that we’ve learned as fellows and apply them to this devastating situation.”
Cristal Anguiano ’27, a third-year Hybrid JD Evening student and fellow volunteer, said she was looking for a way to help the wildfire relief effort and was grateful that LLS provided an opportunity for her to do just that. She said the FEMA clinic allows law students to put into practice the reason they wanted to become lawyers: to be someone that others can lean on.
Though students might think they aren’t yet skilled enough to make a difference to wildfire survivors, she assured them: “You are.”
“One of the most important things for people going through a tragedy like this is to feel that they have a community,” Anguiano said. “I feel that us being there and being a face to answer questions and, more than anything, to hear people out is one of the best things you can do for people who are facing this.”
And for some volunteers, it worked both ways. “I couldn’t have imagined being anywhere else today other than being here, speaking to survivors, hearing their stories and their needs and how we as law students can assist,” Wilson said.
In addition to the law school’s list of community relief resources, which include the LLS Emergency Fund for impacted students, the university as a whole has activated multiple fronts of assistance. LMU’s Westchester campus housed American Red Cross volunteers deployed to support wildfire relief efforts. And a newly announced Faculty and Staff Emergency Response Fund will provide grants to impacted faculty and staff.