This week’s fires in the North Bay have impacted the entire Bay Area, including the BORP Community. We were deeply saddened to learn that Christina Hanson was a victim of the fire in Santa Rosa and send our condolences to her friends and family. Christina was a BORP youth program participant from 2002 to 2006 — Click here to read a touching tribute to Christina from childhood friend and former BORP teammate, Christine Burke.

We have been in contact with many BORP participants who have been displaced as a result of the fires to ensure they have everything they need. All those impacted are invited to join a Facebook group we’ve set up to connect the BORP community with resources, temporary housing, and to meet other needs as they emerge.

BORP has hosted the annual Revolution Ride & Festival in Sonoma for 15 years and each year the community opens its arms to help us organize this important event, with local businesses and groups donating everything from coffee and bagels to pop-up tents and water coolers. We are deeply indebted to the region now devastated by fires. We reached out this week to ask the BORP community to donate supplies for shelters serving evacuees and you responded generously and selflessly, bringing enough bedding, air mattresses, toiletries, water, and other items to fill the large BORP van. We delivered those items on Thursday morning to a distribution center in Benicia, CA and from there they will be sent to shelters across the region based on their needs.

When one distribution center volunteer saw the van full of supplies, she exclaimed: “You all are amazing.” We couldn’t agree more. Thank you to everyone who donated goods.

Van full of donated supplies for victims of North Bay fires.