Jacob Margolis
covers science, with a focus on environmental stories and disasters, as well as investigations and accountability.
Published December 18, 2023 2:39 PM
Cacao fruits are seen growing on cacao trees on a traditional cacao farm on Dec. 2, 2021 in Cuernavaca, Colombia.
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Jan Sochor
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Who would ever decide to keep highly temperamental trees comfortable at a specific temperature and humidity for multiple years, pollinate thousands of small flowers by hand, ferment, roast, winnow and grind beans into a perfectly smooth paste, all for a few wonderful bars of chocolate? A couple of people down the street from the LAist studios, it turns out.
The hardest part: Because cacao trees are usually pollinated by gnats that don't exist in SoCal, each flower has to be pollinated by hand.
You can do it: Why not give it a go? We've got more information on what can be your most ambitious DIY project.
Anytime you snap a bar of chocolate, sink your teeth into a Reese's or sip Swiss Miss from a mug, the cacao that makes up the best part of each of those sweet treats likely came from within 20 degrees of the equator. As far north as Vietnam and Hawaii, and as far south as Madagascar and Bolivia.
View of the oldest cocoa tree planted in Ghana in 1879 at Tetteh Quarshie cocoa farm in Mampon on June 14, 2019 in Eastern Region of Ghana.
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Cristina Aldehuela
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AFP
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Theobroma cacao, the trees from which chocolate comes, are picky about their environment. They prefer warm and humid conditions with a lot of rain, thriving in partial shade where they’re afforded a whole lot of protection from strong wind and sun.
All of which makes the environment here in Southern California — dry, windy, at times both brutally hot and cold — less than ideal for them if you’re going to try and grow them outside. Which is why I was surprised and thrilled when I found out that there are multiple people who've figured out how to both grow cacao and make chocolate from the beans nearby.
After talking through the process with three different people, it’s not easy by any means, but maybe if you’re up to it you too can give it a go. I know I’ll be trying in my backyard (with the proper greenhouse setup) sometime soon.
Think of this less as a how-to guide and more so a post meant to get you excited to go on an experimental cacao journey of your own.
The intrepid DIY-ers
One of the things I love about the rare fruit-growing community here in Southern California is that it attracts all kinds of different people interested in ridiculous experimentation in less-than-ideal environments.
When it comes to cacao trees, I found two groups taking on the challenge of going from dirt to bar.
Cacao trees growing in steel drums at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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The first group is down the street from the LAist studios in Pasadena, in a nondescript warehouse. Seamus Blackley, physicist and creator of the Xbox, is growing several trees with his creative partner Asher Sefami, a trained microbiologist. They took on the process as distraction to get their minds off of the other super-secret engineering work they're doing at the same location.
Meanwhile, up in Santa Barbara, Mike Orlando, the owner of Twenty-Four Blackbirds, has been making boutique chocolate since 2009. He recently began importing cacao pods, sprouting the beans and growing his own trees in a nearby greenhouse.
So, what can we learn from them?
Step 1: Growing the trees
First, you need to get your hands on some trees.
You can pick them up from rare fruit nurseries in L.A., like Mimosa, or you can sprout your own.
An Afro-Colombian farmer separates pulpy cacao seeds from a cacao pod during a harvest on a traditional cacao farm on Dec. 1, 2021 in Cuernavaca, Colombia.
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Jan Sochor
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Getty Images
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If you get your hands on some fresh pods, pull out the seeds, wash off the pulp, peel off the outside skin and stick them along with a moist paper towel in a plastic bag. Keep them in a warm environment, somewhere between 80 to 90 degrees, and wait.
Cacao seeds sprouting.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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Each pod has 30 to 50 seeds, so you'll have a lot of opportunities.
Cacao plants that've been sprouted from seed.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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Once you have your cacao tree, you need to plant it.
Sefami stuck theirs in oil drums with standard potting soil.
Cacao trees growing in steel drums at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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Orlando planted his in a greenhouse.
One of the most critical components of this process is controlling the environment the trees live in, as they prefer moist and warm conditions with dappled light.
Orlando shoots to keep his greenhouse from 60 to 80 degrees at about 70% humidity, though he's seen the trees survive in 40-degree weather.
Cacao trees kept warm and moist in a greenhouse.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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In Blackley's climate-controlled lab, a nearby water jet keeps the humidity up and grow lights above the trees give them at least 12 hours of sunlight. They had a problem with aphids, so they tried to remedy the issue with thousands of ladybugs before eventually just using pesticides.
For fertilizer, Orlando sprays the leaves with a kelp mixture and sprinkles Miracle Grow Osmocote every three months or so, depending on how they look.
As you'll find if you start growing plants, a lot of it's a feel thing.
Step 2: Pollinating tiny flowers (the hardest part)
In the wild, cacao trees are often pollinated by biting midges, which don't exist here. So, you'll need to pollinate each tiny flower by hand, using pollen from different plants.
Orlando hasn't quite gotten to this point in the process, but Sefami and Blackley have, after about two years of trying to figure it out.
"The first pod we got, we were through the moon," said Sefami. "And it got to about the size of a Tic Tac and then it just falls off. And it was like ... it was one of the most painful moments."
Cacao flowers grow on trees at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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"The hard part is when you have tweezers and you're trying to decide if this plant and this plant are different enough genetically, they might work. And you spend half an hour pollinating, and maybe it works or maybe it doesn't, and you don't know what's going on, and the tree is dying, and you're not sure why," said Blackley.
Asher Zelig Sefami pulls pollen from a cacao flower.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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"Basically you need to take the flower apart into its constituent parts. We remove the pollen and then we have to rub it on the other flowers in a way that just touches where it needs to go,“ said Sefami.
"The flower needs to be at just the right stage of development. Within about a day, they fall off. It’s really hard to get it right."
Cacao pods grow on a tree at the Pacific Light & Hologram lab.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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Turns out the biting midges are quite effective, said Blackley.
Step 3: Harvest and ferment the beans
If you get to the point where you're harvesting the pods, next you've got to ferment them.
Blackley and Sefami pulled the beans out of the pods smushed them into a bowl and stuck them in a proofing box.
Cacao beans fermenting.
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Seamus Blackley
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They kept the beans at about 83 degrees Fahrenheit, around 80% humidity and mixed them once a day. There was so much microbial activity that the temperature of the beans climbed to 115 degrees before dropping down over the course of about a week.
"At first it smells ... doughy and bready. And then the fermentation process gets taken over by bacteria that produce essentially vinegar, so it starts to smell kind of sharp," said Blackley.
"And then one day you open up the fermentation chamber and it starts to smell like chocolate. It's completely strange."
After they were done fermenting, they dried them to 3% moisture to get them ready for roasting.
Step 4: Roast, grind and temper the cacao
While you can purchase all sorts of different specialty roasting equipment, Orlando recommends you just throw them into your oven at about 250 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes until they start to smell like brownies.
Then, separate the nibs from the shells, blend them in a spice grinder and then grind them into as fine a liquid as you can get them to in a mortar and pestle. This is when you'll add your sugar — 30% by weight will give you 70% dark chocolate.
Alternatively, you can purchase a wet grinder, which uses stone wheels to pulverize the cacao into a smooth chocolate liquor.
"If that was your first time making chocolate, you'd be pretty impressed. It tastes pretty good," said Orlando.
Step 5: Make the bars
Finally, you can temper your chocolate, which gives a bar its characteristic snap when you bite into it.
A bar of finished chocolate.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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You then pour it into molds, wait for it to harden and enjoy.
Step 6: Taste the chocolate
If you get this far, you've probably since spent years of effort and thousands of dollars for something you could've purchased at the store for about $12. And we should be friends because it's the kind of absolutely insane experimentation I love.
"I'll tell you, growing chocolate from seed is quite an adventure, but it's the kind of thing you should do in your life. Don't you want to know how to do that? Make chocolate from dirt? Come on," said Blackley.
The final product from Blackley and Sefami.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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So how did their chocolate taste?
Absolutely delicious! It was fruity with notes of cinnamon and I could've kept eating it. Though, considering the investment each square was probably worth its weight in gold, they only gave me a tiny piece.
If you want to just buy already-made chocolate, you can also check out Twenty-Four Blackbirds in Santa Barbara.
The machine on the left keeps the chocolate in temper so employees can fill molds for chocolate truffles at Twenty-Four Blackbirds in Santa Barbara.
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Mike Orlando
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Twenty-Four Blackbirds Chocolate
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Resources for DIY-ers
This is far from a comprehensive guide, but if you do go on a dirt-to-bar chocolate journey, there are some great resources out there to guide you through the chocolate making part in particular.
Chocolate Alchemy is a reliable resource with links to equipment suitable for a DIY-er.
Gas prices displayed at a gas station in Monrovia on March 31.
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Zeng Hui
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Getty Images
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Topline:
In the face of the nation’s highest gas prices, California lawmakers approved a bill to ease restrictions on E85 conversion kits — devices that let conventional gasoline cars run on a cheaper, mostly ethanol fuel blend.
Background: The measure is the latest example of Sacramento lawmakers scrambling to respond to gas costs that have soared amidst the Iran-Israel war, which has rattled global oil markets and pushed California pump prices above $6 a gallon. It now heads to the California state Senate and would need Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval before it becomes law.
What supporters say: “Californians consistently pay more at the pump than drivers from other states, and gas prices are once again climbing across the state,” Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom said Thursday. “For commuters and working families, [the proposal] offers a practical way to save money.”
What critics say: Environmentally, the fuel is rated cleaner than regular gasoline by California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard. But that rating has critics. Aaron Smith, a Berkeley economist, said the benefits of ethanol are likely overstated. Official numbers likely understate emissions from land use as rising corn demand for ethanol pushes farmers to clear forested land.
Read on ... for more on the push to offer ethanol as an alternative fuel.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
In the face of the nation's highest gas prices, California lawmakers approved a bill to ease restrictions on E85 conversion kits — devices that let conventional gasoline cars run on a cheaper, mostly ethanol fuel blend.
Assembly Bill 2046, dubbed the “Access to Affordable Gas Act” by its author, Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, a Stockton Democrat, advanced through the Assembly on a 59-0 vote with no debate or opposition.
The measure is the latest example of Sacramento lawmakers scrambling to respond to gas costs that have soared amid the Iran-Israel war, which has rattled global oil markets and pushed California pump prices above $6 a gallon. It now heads to the California state Senate and would need Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval before it becomes law.
“Californians consistently pay more at the pump than drivers from other states, and gas prices are once again climbing across the state,” Ransom said on the Assembly floor Thursday. “For commuters and working families, [the proposal] offers a practical way to save money.”
If approved in its current form, the measure would exempt manufacturers of E85 converter kits from an approval process by the state’s primary climate regulator, the California Air Resources Board, which requires companies to demonstrate the devices do not increase a vehicle's emissions. The bill would leave in place a separate federal certification process run by the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Members in Sacramento are looking for ways to try to reduce costs — or appear to reduce costs of driving — and so this is a way to do that,” said Aaron Smith, a UC Berkeley economist and fuels expert.
The converter kits, which cost between $800 to $1,250, according to a legislative analysis of the bill, would let drivers convert their cars to run on both gasoline and E85 fuel.
E85 is a blend of up to 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; the share of ethanol typically is between 55% and 85%, said Smith, the Berkeley expert.
Jeff Wilkerson, government affairs manager for Pearson Fuels, the largest E85 fuel provider in the state and a bill supporter, said E85 — much of which is made from Midwest corn — is largely insulated from overseas oil shocks that drive California gas prices. The ethanol blend has sold for $2 or more less per gallon than gasoline during recent price spikes.
While E85 is typically priced lower than gasoline and can reduce petroleum dependence and carbon emissions, it delivers 20% to 30% fewer miles per gallon, according to the air board, meaning drivers only save money when E85 is priced at least 20% to 30% below gasoline.
About 1.3 million vehicles in California can currently use the fuel, which is sold at about 640 stations statewide — just 3% of the state’s more than 15,000 fuel pumps, according to the bill analysis.
Ransom said more E85 pumps would be built if the state loosened restrictions and encouraged demand for the fuel blend. She stressed that her bill would present E85 as an alternative.
“For some people, it may not be a wise choice, but at least now it’s going to be a choice,” she said.
Environmentally, the fuel is rated cleaner than regular gasoline by California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard. But that rating has critics. Smith, the Berkeley economist, said the benefits of ethanol are likely overstated. Official numbers likely understate emissions from land use as rising corn demand for ethanol pushes farmers to clear forested land.
The state’s own certification record offers a cautionary tale. Lindsay Buckley, a spokesperson for the board, said the agency has received only five applications from companies for E85 conversion kits since 2008 and that none has cleared the certification process, which is designed to ensure modified vehicles still meet their original emissions standards. Supporters of the proposal argue the board moves slowly and its regulations are burdensome.
But loosening that standard carries its own risk, cautioned Aaron Kurz, senior consultant on the Assembly Transportation Committee, especially now.
As the federal government has stripped scientific expertise from regulatory decisions, he wrote in his analysis, “this committee should consider if the state should cede authority over an inherently scientific process and set a precedent for transferring approval authority to the federal government.”
Google chief executive Sundar Pichai speaks during the tech titan's annual I/O developers conference May 14, 2024, in Mountain View. Google on Tuesday said it would introduce AI-generated answers to online queries made by users in the United States in one of the biggest updates to its search engine in 25 years.
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Glenn Chapman
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Google this week announced significant changes to its search box — that austere, single-line input field on its homepage that has been the world's most popular entry point into the web for around two-and-a-half decades.
What's the big shift? Behind the scenes, a bigger shift is under way. Google is merging artificial intelligence and traditional web search in a move that Liz Reid, who oversees search at Google, said brings "the best of web and the best of AI together."
What are critics saying? Critics say folding AI deeper into search risks further muddying the waters around the provenance of information gleaned from the web, and could take agency away from users. A chatbot is likely to return a summary with only a few links to further information, unlike a web search that returns many pages of links.
Read on ... for more on what this shift means for Google users.
MOUNTAIN VIEW – Google is changing what it means to Google.
The company this week announced significant changes to its search box — that austere, single-line input field on its homepage that has been the world's most popular entry point into the web for around two-and-a-half decades.
The new version looks similar to the old one-line text box, but it's dynamic, expanding with longer queries. Users can also drop videos, pictures and files into it for what Google calls "multimodal" search.
Behind the scenes, a bigger shift is under way. Google is merging artificial intelligence and traditional web search in a move that Liz Reid, who oversees search at Google, said brings "the best of web and the best of AI together."
Critics say folding AI deeper into search risks further muddying the waters around the provenance of information gleaned from the web and could take agency away from users. A chatbot is likely to return a summary with only a few links to further information, unlike a web search that returns many pages of links.
But the shift is, in some ways, not surprising, given Silicon Valley's hard pivot toward AI, with Google and others investing billions in the technology and refocusing corporate strategies around it.
For about a year, Google has put "AI Overviews" — short summaries — at the top of some search results. "What we've seen with AI Overviews is that people don't want either just an AI or the web. They want a mix of both," said Reid.
She said she's noticed that users have started to ask longer questions, with more natural language, rather than fragments or key words. "They're asking the question that they really have," Reid said.
For Google, that potentially unlocks new understandings of user intentions. "If you start using more natural language, if you're having a conversation, when you've shifted from researching into buying, you've sort of indicated that. And so we can put better ads because we understand what that is," Reid said.
Google is also introducing agentic functionality to search, so that users can ask it to do tasks over time — like search for theater tickets at regular intervals or send shoppers a notification when something goes on sale or conduct a weekly scan of the internet for local events.
Carolina Milanesi, an independent technology analyst, said Google is trying to make its cash cow business — search — richer and more personalized, and it will make shopping easier. But there is a risk that users may have fewer choices about what to click.
"Right now it's: I ask a question, I get a bunch of answers and I feel that I'm in control as to which answer I take, or if I'm looking for something, which product I'm going to end up buying. That is going to be less so going forward," she said.
Milanesi envisions AI-enabled search and agents proposing products to consumers — perhaps even those they have requested — but with less clarity or choice around where it's coming from.
"If you're going to say: 'I want a pair of Jordans, go find them,' you're not necessarily sure what steps have been taken and whether the AI has used a source or a store that was paid for and, therefore, came up in the search results," she said, "or if AI actually went and did their due diligence and picked the best for me as a customer."
Sarah T. Roberts, director of the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA, said the algorithmic underpinnings of Google's web search results have long been "by design, inscrutable to end users," and there's more to it than simply the best of the web floating to the top of any given search. Adding AI will only make the system more opaque, she said.
"What's happening now with AI is that that complexity that already existed will be further obfuscated and even more difficult to unpack," she said.
She noted episodes where Google's AI has provided bad results, including advising putting glue in pizza and eating rocks. "Those gaffes shouldn't be forgotten as Google makes this transition," she said.
And critics say that driving more Google users from web searches to interacting with AI will exacerbate the risks of the so-called "Google Zero" scenario, where the growth of AI queries kills off web search and suffocates the internet click economy as we know it. That includes online shops, web advertisers and news organizations that all depend on referred traffic from Google.
While the redesigned box will be the same for all Google users, there are various tricks and tips online for people who want to disable or avoid some AI functions when using Google.
Google is a financial supporter of NPR.
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Early every Saturday for the last three and a half years, William Campbell, 61, leaves his Silver Lake home to be at the Angels Flight station for the first ride at 6:45 a.m.
Why it matters: Campbell is one of a team of operators behind the proverbial wheel of the two near-identical funiculars — named Olivet and Sinai — that go up and down a 33% angle slope from Hill Street to Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles.
The backstory: Campbell is also a superfan and has been researching the Bunker Hill funicular's 124-year history.
Early every Saturday for the last three and a half years, William Campbell, 61, leaves his Silver Lake home to be at the Angels Flight station for the first ride at 6:45 a.m.
Campbell is one of a team of operators behind the proverbial wheel of the two near-identical funiculars — named Olivet and Sinai — that go up and down a 33% angle slope from Hill Street to Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles.
“You’re a part of living history,” said Campbell, who is dressed in an orange and black waistcoat and bow tie, and wears a bowler hat with a monarch butterfly on top. There’s a reason for that, he said mysteriously.
Angels Flight on Bunker Hill.
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James Bartlett
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Today, I am the first rider. Soon after, I am joined by a family visiting from Texas.
“I was just looking at a local tourist place, and I just saw this small, cute railway,” said Michael Nguyen, who was alongside his mother and sister. “I was like, oh, this looks interesting. And I saw that you can actually go on it. I was like, OK, that’s pretty dope.”
Masterminded by lawyer, politician and engineer Col. James Ward Eddy, the Angels Flight “hillevator” opened on New Year’s Eve 1901 as a way for people to travel up and down Bunker Hill, which was then the place where the city’s wealthy population lived.
The journey took them down to the streets and stores below and from 1917, Grand Central Market, with the first passengers paying just a penny fare for what was billed as the “shortest railway in America,” traveling just 298 feet.
When he’s not working his weekday full-time day job investigating animal cruelty and abuse, Campbell spends his spare time looking through online newspaper archives for any information about Angels Flight.
Angels Flight Railway.
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James Bartlett
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Angels Flight Railway.
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James Bartlett
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Originally located by the 3rd Street Tunnel — at the end of the block from where it is now — the train has been through several changes, as has Bunker Hill itself.
“All the wealthy people moved to Beverly Hills, and Brentwood, and Bel Air, and beyond. And all their wonderful Victorian mansions were turned into boarding houses, and it attracted a lower income, more diverse population, which resulted in blight and crime — at least according to the city,” Campbell said of Bunker Hill's transformation.
City officials authorized Bunker Hill to be all but razed in the 1950s and '60s, and Angels Flight was put into what was promised to be temporary storage for a year or two, despite protests from singer Peggy Lee and others.
Angels Flight Railway 351 S. Hill St., Los Angeles Daily, 6:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. A round-trip ticket is $3, which is orange and has a souvenir portion. A one-way trip is $1.75 or $1 for TAP cardholders. William Campbell works there every Saturday and will happily talk to you if he can. You can find out more about Campbell's wildlife interests and win a prize in Angels Flight quizzes via Instagram.
The year was 1969. And it took nearly three decades for its return. Angels Flight welcomed passengers again in 1996 to its current location after test runs were made with cases of beer and soft drinks weighing 9,000 pounds. The cable cars were rebuilt exactly as before, but with modern safety requirements, such as Sinai having wheelchair space.
A 2001 accident in which one person died and seven were injured saw another long closure until 2010, and there was a derailment in 2014, which saw another short shuttering. But Angels Flight has been running ever since 2017, save the odd mechanical problem.
William Campbell.
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James Bartlett
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Angels Flight keepsakes made by William Campbell for riders to take.
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James Bartlett
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Campbell describes himself as a cheerleader for Angels Flight, and you can easily see why. During his shift he pins up a 1904 photo of the city’s landscape taken from an 80-foot-high observation tower at the original location, so people can compare it to the skyscraper skyline of today.
“At one time you could see all the way to Catalina,” he noted.
There is also a display about near-forgotten Bunker Hill folk artist Marcel Cavalla, and Campbell gives away Angels Flight bookmarks, stickers and maps, all of which he researches, designs and prints out of his own pocket.
One of his projects, old advertisements from 1901 to the 1940s, is displayed in the panels above the seats, and was installed a couple of months ago.
Interior of Angels Flight, showcasing old advertisements from 1901 to the 1940s that Campbell installed.
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One of the vintage ads for Catalina Carrier-Pigeon Service.
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There's everything from old Market Basket supermarket ads, to Barbara Stanwyck shilling for Lux toilet soap, to a standard power mower from John Bean manufacturing, to one for the Catalina Carrier Pigeon Service, which operated from 1894 to 1902, taking messages from Avalon to Bunker Hill.
And the monarch butterfly on his hat? That’s related to his Angels Flight “holy grail,” the one question he can’t definitively answer: why were they painted orange and black?
With that, Campbell grabs his binoculars and sees there are passengers waiting for a ride up, so I get into Olivet and wave goodbye as I travel down to Hill Street.
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published May 23, 2026 5:00 AM
The group Neighbors Helping Neighbors helps Altadena fire survivors clear weeds from burnt lots.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Topline:
A new group called Neighbors Helping Neighbors has been helping Eaton Fire survivors clear burnt lots of overgrown weeds.
Why now: The volunteering effort is not just to tidy things up – but to clear lots of fire fuels as the region enters fire season.
Backstory: The group is founded by Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, who grew up in Altadena and whose parents and sister all lost homes in the fire.
Read on ... to learn more about the group and how you can help.
A group called Neighbors Helping Neighbors has been clearing overgrown weeds for free on fire survivors' empty lots in Altadena.
They’ve finished 10 with many more to go. They’re keeping at it not just to keep things tidy, but to avert another disaster as the region enters fire season — and their efforts are spreading. More than 200 homeowners have signed up, after hearing about the group from its Facebook page and through word of mouth.
“I'm 5 feet 2 inches tall, but there were weeds 6 and 8 feet tall,” said Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, the ringleader. She is also a co-founder of Altadena Talks Foundation, a nonprofit started in the wake of the Eaton Fire.
Bailey-Raines lives in San Dimas but grew up in Altadena. Her parents and sister all lost their homes in the Eaton Fire.
“I went to my parents' lot one day,” she said. “I loaded up the back of my car with my lawnmower, my blower, my rake, because I wanted to make sure their lot was cleaned up.”
It took seven hours, but she figured all that overgrown vegetation can't be good for Altadena with the fire season just around the corner.
And just like that, the idea for Neighbors Helping Neighbors was born.
Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines, founder of Neighbors Helping Neighbors.
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Fiona Ng
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Antoinette “Toni” Bailey-Raines at one of the cleared lots.
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Fiona Ng
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The very first lot, just south in Pasadena, was cleared in mid-April. Bailey-Raines said the property was getting notices from the city to clear the lot or face escalating fines. Pasadena conducts brush clearance inspections every spring and summer.
Toni said the family had moved to Mississippi after the Eaton Fire.
“You lost everything, and then somebody's gonna tell you they're gonna give you a fine because you have weeds on your lot and you're not even here to see that?” Bailey-Raines said.
That day, she rounded up a group of nine people, including her son and his friend. A neighbor across the street was suspicious at first, but eventually told her, "You have me for about an hour." He stayed for two.
On May 13, dozens of volunteers showed up in Altadena to clear seven lots in one morning.
One of them — a 14,000-square-foot lot — belongs to Sarkis Aleksanian and his family. He had reached out to Bailey-Raines in late April, after learning about the group from a neighborhood WhatsApp chat.
“I was looking into cleaning up the lot and really daunted by the prospect,” he said. “I was worried that the lawn would dry up and be a problem.”
Aleksanian and his wife were on hand to help out. It’s the one thing that Bailey-Raines requires — for the homeowners to be there.
“I've asked them that if they're able-bodied to be here and help,” she said. “You're here. You're encouraging people, and you're helping on your lot. [Sarkis] was doing everything from weed-eater, to chainsaw, to whatever, and that's what it's about.”
This 14,000-square-foot lot in Altadena was cleaned up in less than two hours on a recently Saturday.
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“It was just remarkable, I tell you,” Aleksanian said. He said he recognized some of the volunteers that morning — folks he sees in the community.
And he did encounter someone he knew — a high school acquaintance from years back. “It's neighbors helping neighbors, just like she called it, you know?” Aleksanian said.
His lot was finished in 90 minutes.
More is needed
With a growing waitlist, what is needed are people and equipment — from gloves and trash bags to the hardware.
“I have six brush cutters and two chainsaws and a couple trimmers, but I need, like, triple that at least,” she said.
Same goes for rechargeable batteries that power these tools — which Bailey-Raines juices up with generators they bring on-site.
“My dream is one Saturday morning to have 500 people and that we clear a whole street, a whole block — so that this list of 200 can go down, and as others hear about it, they get on it, and we as a community do this as neighbors to help one another,” she said.
