New Yorkers send supplies to Los Angeles amid wildfires
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NEW YORK CITY (PIX11) – New Yorkers are rallying to support wildfire victims across the country in Los Angeles.
Roughly 105,000 Los Angeles County residents remain under mandatory evacuation orders as of Sunday morning and another 87,000 are under an evacuation warning, authorities said during a press conference.
A preliminary estimate by AccuWeather put the damage and economic losses so far between $135 billion and $150 billion.
Over the weekend, Ray’s Bar in Brooklyn and Manhattan collected donations to send to Los Angeles using donated movers and transportation from Piece of Cake Moving. The bar collected and sent over 400 boxes of items including clothes, towels, blankets and toiletries.
“[It’s] a very encouraging reminder that there will always be people willing to help their neighbors, even 3,000 miles away,” said one volunteer.
Another local business rallying to send aid is Pickle, a peer-to-peer fashion rental company. Volunteers were busy since the morning taking donations of clothing.
"We've had north of 100 volunteers that came together from our community to help make this happen with us," said Julia O'Mara, the founder of Pickle. "We've had roadway volunteers take these boxes to another facility to sort them out and package items for people in Los Angeles. We have another 50 volunteers from our community waiting out there."
More businesses collected donations on Sunday, including Chillhouse Soho, PIckle in the West Village, and Migo Events and Viva Toro in Williamsburg. Viva Toro had to stop their donation drive in the first hour due to the sheer number of donations they received.
Viva Toro will be accepting donations again on Tuesday and Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., which will be sent to the Salvation Army in Los Angeles.