Connect

“I think [volunteering] really helped to bring the community together. They laughed, they cried, and they worked together. It helped people heal a little bit.”
— David Riker

How have you overcome obstacles in your life?

Craig Martin used this McLeod tool with many of the volunteer work parties he helped to organize in the months after the fire. Gift of Craig Martin. LAHS Archives, 2000.035. Los Alamos Historical Society.

Volunteers pitched in as soon as they could. During the evacuation, 134 ham radio operators kept emergency communication channels open. Led by the Kramer family, volunteers at the Elks Lodge cooked more than 50,000 hot meals for firefighters and emergency personnel. Sue Dummer at the De Colores restaurant made 120 gallons of chile sauce every day to keep New Mexican first responders fed and happy.

As people returned to town, they wanted to help the forest regrow. The denuded hillsides threatened to allow dangerous floods in the approaching summer rains. The community organized work parties to prevent flooding, to make trails safe for use, and to plant seeds and seedlings. The volunteer response was overwhelming. More than 400 people helped on the first Saturday, and by the end of the year, some 2,000 volunteers filled 60,600 sandbags, worked on 19.2 miles of trail, and raked, seeded, and mulched more than 490 acres of land.

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