GREAT FALLS — Friday will mark one month since the Los Angeles fires began. While the fires are now mostly contained, there are still thousands of individuals displaced and looking for help. Among the chaos, there are Montanans who are doing what they can to support their California neighbors.
Valerie Ballard, a volunteer services program director for the Red Cross said, “It has been a great opportunity, to be here and to help our, our neighbors in California.”
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Ballard is from Gardiner, Montana. She was one of three Montanans who shipped out to California with the Red Cross to help with the disaster.
Ballard said, “When the requests for help came in for a role that I have some training in, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to help this community that [has been] impacted by this devastating fire.”
Ballard is the regional program director for the Red Cross here in Montana, and is now using her skills to organize the hundreds of local volunteers trying to help their neighbors in LA. She says that, among the destruction, the people bring hope.
Ballard said, “This overwhelming support from the local community, people really leaning in, wanting to help their neighbors in any and every way possible.”
Ballard says the best way to support California is to donate money to the Red Cross or take part in one of their blood drives.
Ballard said, “It gives them the opportunity, to make decisions on their immediate recovery. And it helps, reset and refuel the local economy that's been so devastated by these wildfires.”
More than four dozen Montana firefighters have been deployed to California to help battle the fires, including a team of pilots from Billings.
In Augusta, Montana, a real estate agent is offering support in a unique way.
Lynn Kenyon, owner of Outlaw Women Saloon, said, “We have 13 rooms and, watched, you know, in horror as these poor people lost their homes and thought that we could do something.”
Kenyon is offering housing to displaced Californians. Thirty days free of charge at the motel, and space in their RV park as well.
Kenyon said, “They have nothing and they're people, and so we're trying to be charitable and Christian-like and give them a room,”
For Kenyon, not trying to help was never an option.
Kenyon said, “People lost pets. They lost family. To watch everything you ever built just burn up in front of you and have nowhere to go. I mean, they're in desperate situations, and we're very blessed and have the ability to do it.”
Montanans helping neighbors, even if they are a thousand miles away.
To learn more about the Red Cross and be more prepared for an emergency, click here.
More info on rooms available at Augusta MT Motel and RV park here.
