Hundreds show up to donate supplies to the victims of the Camp Fire

Dozens of cars lined the parking lot of General Feed and Seed in Santa Cruz, Saturday. Hundreds arrived with trunks full of supplies, and filled their arms with as much as they could carry.

They were all brought together by one Santa Cruz resident, who posted a call to action on Facebook. Her mission was to collect donations for the victims of the Camp Fire. She felt the need to help after watching a video of a close friend fleeing the flames, leaving her home and memories behind.

12 hours later, the pile of supplies began to grow.

“It’s been amazing to see everyone band together. The amount of offers to help with taking loads up. It’s really restorative of my faith in our community to do good,” said head organizer of the drive, Crystal Sands.

Sands said she hasn’t begun to count the number of items dropped off, but predicted it to be well in the thousands.

“Coming together and to see everyone gathering supplies. We just want people to know that they’re not alone, and were going to move through this,” said Santa Cruz resident, Chelsea Nguyen.

People said their willingness to help will extend beyond, this Saturday, knowing how easily a disaster like this could affect a community like theirs.

With the help of a few others, the Sands family will be loading all the supplies into a U-Haul, Saturday night, and plan to drive up to Chico, to deliver the donations, in the morning.