College Corps volunteer describes care-package drive for recent fire victims

A College Corps volunteer at UCLA described organizing a drive to assemble care packages for victims of recent fires, saying the effort began after their host-site coordinator reached out by text.

The volunteer said they usually help students with college applications and scholarship essays but were recruited into the relief effort when they were out of town as the fires began. "My host site coordinator, they reached out to me directly via text that they were putting on this drive to help the victim of the fires," the volunteer said.

The drive, the volunteer said, is collecting donated clothes, toiletry items and "self care items, things of that nature" to include in care packages. The volunteer emphasized the personal meaning of the work: "You can look back months, years, decades from now and just remember the time that you spent here helping the victims of the fires ... knowing that you helped at their difficult time make it just a little bit easier for them, that's a a great feeling, and then you carry that forward, throughout your whole life."

The remarks described community-organized relief activity and did not identify a sponsoring agency, the geographic scope of the drive, a drop-off location, or a timeline for distribution. No formal motions or votes on the topic were recorded in the transcript.