Rlynn Smith-Thomas from the Santa Clarita Valley NAACP asked a room of volunteers to find a nearby stranger and ask what a day of service looks like to them. Those in attendance were there for their own personal reasons, which they then shared with someone they didn’t know. Ultimately, they all were there to donate goods and their time to those in need. They were there to serve.
Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, partnered with the NAACP Santa Clarita Branch and the Boys & Girls Club of the Santa Clarita Valley for what they called a “Day of Service” on Saturday at the Boys & Girls Club in Canyon Country. In its second year, Schiavo said the goal of the event was to work in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who asked, “What are we doing for each other?”
“That’s what we’re here to do today,” Schiavo said to the group before everyone went to work. “To be here for each other, to support each other, whether it’s doing a thank-you card to firefighters who have literally run toward fires in hurricane-type winds and risked their lives to protect our community, or if it’s (to) students who are struggling right now with our mental health crises in our schools and giving them words of support.”
The “Day of Service” event is one that Schiavo hopes to do every year in honor of King Jr. and MLK Day. On Saturday, people brought clothing, food and essential supplies for those displaced by the fires and others in need. People also wrote thank-you cards and made posters for firefighters and offered art and written words of encouragement for local students at school mental health wellness centers.
Some volunteers made lunches for individuals that would go to the Bridge to Home homeless shelter in Santa Clarita, while others organized all the donations received that would go to local food pantries and to families displaced due to the recent Los Angeles fires. There were also those who painted walls at the Boys & Girls Club clubhouse.
Rep. George Whitesides, D-Agua Dulce, and Santa Clarita City Councilwoman Patsy Ayala were at the event to show their support. Whitesides shared an experience from just days before, when he visited the Pasadena Civic Auditorium and saw hundreds of displaced people laying out their beds, sharing the community space with each other to sleep and figure out what to do next. He spotted a little girl there playing with a single toy, but not much else.
“So many people didn’t have time to take even a change of clothes with them,” he said. “This is a big one, folks, and your presence here is a sign of the strength of our community, a sign of our resolution to help our neighbors in Los Angeles County to recover, to rebuild, and to rebuild stronger.”
According to Ayala, great communities are made by great individuals. She spoke about how proud she was to see so many people there on Saturday who were so eager to help.
Valencia resident Abriana Gomez said she grew up in Altadena and Pasadena. She still fosters connections there. She was volunteering on Saturday because the fire that devastated those communities broke her heart. She wanted to go into Pasadena and Altadena to help, but she’d heard places like the Rose Bowl and Santa Anita Park — the horse track in Arcadia — which had drawn floods of donations, became off limits because crowds were blocking emergency personnel.
“I was feeling very helpless,” Gomez said. “I was thinking, ‘What am I going to do?’ And then this came up. I normally take dance class in the morning — because I’m a dancer — but I gave that up because it was more important to help the people in Altadena and Pasadena.”
Brittany Mack of Canyon Country came to help make lunches with her husband and their two kids. She said she gets emails from the Santa Clarita Valley NAACP, and when she saw a call for help for Saturday’s “Day of Service,” she signed up the whole family to participate.
All four of them were packing bags of chips, juice boxes and fruit into brown paper lunch bags. Mack said her kids were excited to help.
“This is one of their first times doing community service,” she added.
Originally from Oklahoma, the Mack family came to the SCV in 2020 and have been looking for ways to become more involved in the community by lending a helping hand.
Peggy Stabile of Valencia was volunteering her time for personal reasons. She said that when her son came out as gay, she began to see the anguish that he and others in similar circumstances had to deal with. It became the catalyst for her to get more involved, to help those who are suffering.
“I didn’t realize the pain that many people go through just because of who they are,” she said. “This (event) is just an extension of helping both the poor folks who have gone through agony with all that they’ve lost in these past two weeks, and also a lot of our neighbors. I’m a member of NAACP, and I want to help to see that everybody in our community is looked upon and respected by everybody.”
Event organizers said Saturday’s “Day of Service” registered over 100 people from the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys. According to Schiavo, this year’s turnout was about double what it was last year. She hopes the event will continue to grow year after year.
In addition to helping those in need, Schiavo saw the “Day of Service” as a day to bring people together.
“I think that that’s one of the most important things that we do,” she said. “To really come together as a community, bridge divides that exist in our community, in our state, in our nation.”
In times of crises like these with the Los Angeles fires, Schiavo watched people — of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities — prove that they can come together as a community and support one another.
Those who still want to donate can drop off clothing, food and essential supplies between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. during the week at Schiavo’s office at 27441 Tourney Road, Suite 240, in Santa Clarita.
