A Recommitment to Airlink’s Mission:
Everyone Deserves a Home, and Compassion
At the end of January, Airlink had the opportunity to visit partnering nonprofit organizations responding to the Los Angeles fires that devastated neighborhoods and communities in Palisades, Altadena, and beyond.
During the excursion, a theme that returned to the surface again and again was home.
We pulled up to a campground at the foothills of Glendale. Snowtops in the distance were stark against the blue sky, and the earth smelled fresh after the much-needed rain the night before. The sounds of children playing greeted us; an overwhelming sense of peace embraced us.
Project:Camp is the brainchild of Mikey Latner and Ozzie Baron, who bring experience in education and strategic operations into a program dedicated to giving children a place to go after a disaster. They serve families who are focused on rebuilding, but want their children to retain a sense of normalcy during the arduous process. Counselors who are trained in trauma-informed care look on and guide them through exercises that bond and unite them, offering snacks and rotating opportunities to be leaders.
“Disasters [like these fires] can break systems instantly. Organizations and teams like ours need to be nimble. Within hours of the fires spreading, we called Airlink to get us in the air and on the ground so we could invest in a place for the kids to go. [Airlink] has always had our backs, and having that reliability makes all the difference,” said Latner.
The staff of four know that time is of the utmost importance after a hurricane or a fire. They make split-second decisions to mobilize, and begin working connections to reserve sites where they can set up temporary camps—a home-away-from-home.
“If you want to mitigate the long term effects of toxic stress, and give the parents a peace of mind, and give the kids a space to do their thing, it all comes together for us here,” said Latner. “We’re not just a bridge, but a focal point where things happen.”
Stability comes in the form of a home. Even a temporary place that offers stability can offer relief to a family, and a sense of familiarity for children, minimizing the effects of trauma caused by the disaster. It offered a sense of pride that Airlink was able to carry Mikey, Ozzie, and the team to Los Angeles so they could quickly connect with the community and set up camp for children within 48 hours of the fires. While families were actively evacuating or finding hotels and shelters to stay in, temporary homes, Project:Camp was already able to provide a place for their children to keep staying active and engaged in education and activities that took their mind off the disaster—and that, to families, was priceless. Their observations and research, they hope, is something they could testify for on The Hill, and spur attention on an issue long overlooked.
“We provide emotional support through simple programs—chalk, finger painting, games—and connections for families looking for a network to rely on. They need clinicians for free care, resources for getting into new schools. It’s intense. The circumstances are overwhelming. But here, we focus on the joy and developing memories that ease the pain,” Latner said. “We aren’t here for long, sometimes just a couple of weeks to make an impact, but Airlink gets us here sooner, so [we can] change lives for the better, faster.” An errant ball rolled over to us, and when we threw it back, we watched children scramble over the playground to chase it, as if it were a normal day at recess.
We visited Team Rubicon at their refreshed headquarters, and sat down with Art delaCruz for a discussion about mobilizing a large group of volunteers who are eager to pick up tools and lend their skills to helping others.
For years Airlink has been one of the partners that Team Rubicon chooses when they are in need of sending volunteers and materials to support relief efforts in the wake of a disaster. Hurricane responses to Helene and Milton required planes full of volunteers crossing the country, while the Los Angeles fires happened right in their backyard.
The idea of people losing homes is a fear that resonates with everyone. It’s what inspires and compels people to collect donations and make pledges to help. Studies over recent decades indicate humans’ first impulses are generally good; so when disaster strikes, there is a flurry of people wanting to rush and offer aid.
But, humanitarian responses over those same decades demonstrate that not all can, nor should, help.
Several large disasters that required immense resources: hurricanes Mitch and Katrina, earthquakes in Haiti, cyclones in Southeast Asia, complex crises in Yemen, Syria, Ethiopia, and Central African Republic, all were examples of humanitarian crises that challenged the global nonprofit community. The need for mass help gave way to the need of coordination, and the helpers of the world had a reckoning in how they responded.
“Are we trusting government organizations to get there first? It’s really easy to go. The initial response [is important], but it’s really about sustained response,” Art said. Knowing which materials, who to deploy, and how and when to send either is an overlooked and underestimated aspect of response logistics, which Airlink works closely with partners and grassroots operations to ensure the right aid is sent to the right place at the right time.
We visited the CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort) office to meet the team and view their operation. In this context, CORE assists families financially through direct cash support, and with resources to navigate the complex aid processes and paperwork needed to rebuild their lives. In a disaster, there is little time to grieve and emotionally process the unfolding events, as bureaucracy demands a seamless transition to ensure no interruption to basic services: insurance, welfare, education, employment, taxes, and residency. Even something as simple as getting mail delivered becomes a burden for families to sort through; it will not automatically be redirected nor saved without the family filing with the Post Office. That likely won’t be the first thing families think of when they’ve lost their home.
“Airlink is a force multiplier. It allows an organization like ours to move people—our most important assets,” said Ann Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of CORE. “Without that kind of support, it would have come out of CORE funds, [and that] would’ve impacted our ability to provide services to communities in need. You take on the logistics challenges, get us from Point A to Point B, and we do the rest. But we couldn’t do the rest without you, first.”
Humanitarian response requires logistics that focus on timeliness and operation, putting aside the taxing emotions swirling during and after a disaster. Yet, serving in the humanitarian sector requires a level of selflessness and compassion that drives one to help complete strangers.
“We’re approaching over four weeks since the city of Los Angeles rallied around this disaster, but people are getting tired. We’re going to need additional support to relieve the front lines, and also to keep providing—[Airlink] enables us to keep the flow sustained,” Ann shared, when we connected at the end of January.
You are only as good as your last response. In each disaster, organizations like Airlink, Project:Camp, Team Rubicon, CORE, and others, including two hundred of our own partners, all find ways to improve the way they assist and coordinate relief efforts for those affected. Each has our role in it:
Governments were designed to protect and serve their citizens. The United States’ Federal response to offering relief after a disaster domestically is FEMA, and internationally, USAID. No agency, office, company, or organization has the bandwidth, power, nor capability to manage all aspects and phases of a disaster: from urgent response to health system strengthening, long-term support and rebuilding, disease prevention, nutrition, transportation, and water. The humanitarian sector, and the myriad of talents and niche skills they bring are all parts of the gears that turn together in a response. They fit together and complement what the government can offer its people, near and far.
On the last day in Los Angeles, the After the Fire USA team, which put together a documentary on the devastating effects of the 2023 wildfires in Maui, invited me to join a group of advocates who were going to visit the burn scars. It was up close that we saw what it meant to lose a home. Few had their foundations remaining. Cars were turned into puddles of metal. Occasionally, a lawn or a chimney was intact, and the rest wiped away. More importantly, it represented a loss in community, built over generations, and stability.
Losing a home is a tremendous loss that is difficult to comprehend until it happens to you. In the humanitarian sector, we support displaced persons and migrants seeking a safe home, we help protect and enforce communities from flooding and storms, and we help rebuild and reinforce infrastructures after disaster, whether natural or manmade.
Though many of us may be fortunate to never lose a home to financial hardship, disaster, or conflict, we collectively bear the responsibility to look out for one another, to keep our community and country strong. In the absence of Federal aid, people call on billionaires and celebrities to donate. Long after members of the media cease to report on the disaster, nonprofit organizations remain to continue picking up the pieces.
Over three hundred million people are estimated to need humanitarian aid in some form this year and much of that responsibility will fall to nonprofit organizations to help reach them. I’m grateful for everything they do.
My plane landed at Reagan National Airport just hours before the terrible collision on January 29. Families and individuals aboard were on their way home, or traveling away from home, expecting to be able to return days later. It was another reminder of how fragile our lives are, and how grateful I am to be in a position to help others through the darkest days of theirs. I opened the door to my home that evening and was able to hug my family.
A simple gesture that can be taken for granted every day suddenly meant an immense amount; and it reaffirmed to me all we do at Airlink, so others can feel this way: safe and whole—and at home.
We are in a moment of uncertainty across the nonprofit sector, but regardless of the turns and hurdles in the road ahead, I am proud to recommit Airlink to the mission we embarked on 15 years ago, and stand alongside our partners as we strive to help humanity.