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As thousands of families remain displaced after the Camp Fire tore through the town of Paradise, a Facebook page to ‘adopt a family’ continues to grow on Facebook.
A Rocklin couple created ‘Paradise Fire Adopt a Family’ to connect Camp Fire survivors to individuals who can help meet their needs.
“I found a woman on Facebook and she shared the challenges that her family had,” Eric Lofholm explains. “They had lost three homes within her family, and so I reached out to her over Facebook and just asked her how we could help.”
Camp Fire: Faces of the Fire
Lofholm says he and his wife were able to provide the family with financial and emotional support. After helping that woman, Lofholm got the idea to start a website and Facebook page for evacuees and volunteers to directly talk to each other.
As of Monday, the Facebook group had grown to more than 8,000 members.
“It's as simple as this, if I was going to adopt you, if you were in need I would just contact you and I would just say, I want to reach out and see how I can help,” Lofholm explained.
He says some sponsors have opened their homes to Camp Fire survivors, while others are providing services, such as helping people fill out insurance paperwork.
“It might mean a donation, it might mean me getting my company behind you to support you, it might mean making a phone call on your behalf,” Lofholm said.
The Rocklin resident who’s spent the last two decades as a motivation speaker told ABC10 he wanted to use his leadership skills to help as many people as possible. According to Lofholm, approximately 100 evacuees have been able to receive some kind of support after posting their requests on the Facebook page.
For more information on how to adopt a family, click here.
Watch episode 8 now: California’s leaders tell us we’ve entered a “new normal” of more intense wildfires. The truth is: Experts think the deadly mega-fires we’ve seen are just a preview of the new normal.