Malibu families struggling to recover after the Woolsey Fire are receiving support from the Adopt-a-Family project of Malibu Love.
The program was the brainchild of homemaker and mom Tahia Hocking. Website founder Kelly Wirht, a web designer who grew up in Malibu, and local Shayna Spreckman helped make it happen.
Visit malibulove.org/families-in-need to see all the families listed and donate.
The requirement for a family or individual to be included is that they must have lost their home in the Woolsey Fire. Families are vetted by providing a FEMA claim number, pictures of their damaged property and a cross-check of addresses with the City of Malibu website listing damaged/total loss properties.
The Fanning family
The Fanning family—mother Ita Olsen Fanning, dad Craig Fanning and son Miles Fanning, 9—lost their Malibu apartment in the Woolsey Fire on Nov. 9.
“When the alert came in at 9 a.m. of a mandatory evacuation, the ashes were already raining down,” Ita wrote. “Not wanting to take any more time than absolutely necessary, we packed a few things hoping it would just be an overnight trip and left quickly.”
Unfortunately, their home for the last seven years burned to the ground and they lost all of their possessions. The family was in between insurance policies at the time, so they had no insurance and “nothing to return to and nowhere to go,” Ita wrote.
Miles just “cried and cried,” she said. He’s an only child that is home schooled and lost all of his “friends”—his stuffed animals—in the fire. She replaced his “stuffies” the best she could, along with his books and art supplies.
Craig works for Farmers Insurance and, though not in the insurance division, the irony is not lost on the family. He took nearly three weeks off work after the fire as they stayed with friends and tried to decide what to do. They moved into an apartment in Ventura on Nov. 26, but had no furniture. The family slept on blow-up beds for two months.
“We ate while sitting on the floor, and then finally got a dining room table,” Ita said, which she now uses for dining as well as a home office.
Ita works as a professional speech coach and, due to the fire, lost much of the lighting and audio equipment she used in her profession. She also had a side business making and selling her own organic body lotions, and thousands of dollars’ worth of her products burned up.
“We’re starting from scratch and we aren’t complete yet,” Ita said in a phone interview.
“Please help with whatever you can,” she wrote on her GoFundMe page. “No amount is too small.”
Pamela (“Pammy”) McCarthy
Pamela (“Pammy”) McCarthy, 75, is what the locals call “Old Malibu.” She lived in a 700 square-foot studio apartment on a six acre family-owned compound off Pacific Coast Highway that had been purchased by her parents in 1958. Although she had lived on the property on and off for years, she returned full-time about 20 years ago to take care of her sick mother, and then stayed on.
After the Woolsey Fire burned all the structures on the family land on Nov. 9, including her studio apartment, Pammy ended up moving to a hotel in El Segundo in December to be near her daughter, and because the rent there was “reasonable.” She has enough insurance money to stay for six months, until the end of May.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen when the six months is up,” she said in a phone interview. “I’m 75 and handicapped; but I have a very good attitude. As challenging as this has all been, there have also been a lot of gifts.”
Her GoFundMe site says Pammy “escaped with a single suitcase, has no savings and doesn’t know what to do next. Any help is greatly appreciated!”
