The Northern California wildfires, to date more than 7,000 of them including many caused by lightening strikes, have killed seven people and destroyed 2,000 structures and more than 1.5 million acres, that’s roughly the size of Delaware. About a quarter-million people have been ordered to evacuate. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called the blazes “historic.” To provide direct relief for people in California’s wine country, five wine industry marketing professionals have started a fundraising campaign. As of this week, wine regions located in Alameda, Contra Costa, Lake, Monterey, Napa, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties have experienced losses or are threatened.
When fires raged in 2017, Tia Butts, Katie Calhoun, Kimberly Charles and Rebecca Hopkins set up a GoFundMe page that raised almost $100,000 to help farmworkers. One Hope’s co-founder Jake Kloberdanz, who is also CEO of the Napa winery, made a matching donation. This year, Katherine Jarvis joined the team and together the five have set up a GoFundMe page. They have identified these organizations for 2020 Wine Country Fire Relief Funding:
American Red Cross
https://www.redcross.org/donate/
World Central Kitchen
https://donate.wck.org/give
Firefighters Relief - California Fire Foundation
https://linktr.ee/cafirefound
This assists families of fallen firefighters, firefighters and their communities
Napa Valley Community Foundation
Sonoma County Vintners Emergency Relief
https://sonomawine.com/foundation/
https://undocufund.org/
Sonoma Family Meal
https://www.sonomafamilymeal.org/
Monterey County Community Resilience Program
https://montereyco.recovers.org/
https://foodbankformontereycounty.org/
Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties
https://www.ksbw.com/article/how-to-help-the-central-coast-fire-victims/33674589
