LA fires burn girls’ school, damage my business: what next?

• Amara Barroeta is trying to find a school for her daughter next year after the LA fires.
• Eaton’s fire burned the private school she was planning to send her daughter to next year.
• The fires have also slowed business at her cafe, and Barroeta can no longer afford private school.

This spoken essay is based on a conversation with Amara Barroeta, a 41-year-old coffee shop owner who lives in Pasadena, California, with her husband and 5-year-old daughter, Barbara. Barroeta’s business has been struggling since the LA fires broke out on January 7 and her daughter’s school burned down in the Eaton fire.

Some massive fires, including the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire, devastated parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, destroying over 12,000 structures, likely causing at least 27 reported deaths and causing up to $275 billion in damages.

The following has been edited for length and clarity:

I came to the US from Venezuela in 2010 to attend business school at UCLA.

I am a chemical engineer by trade, but I had to leave Venezuela with the political situation there.

When I came here to study, I hoped to return, but things got worse. So my Plan B became my Plan A. And in 2012, I decided to open my own restaurant, Amara Café, in Pasadena. And since then, that’s what I’ve been doing.

I have always loved our food and the culture of Venezuela. And my restaurant is a way to preserve our cultural heritage – it’s something that has brought more purpose to my life.

This is a place that has so much opportunity, but it can be very frustrating to be a small business owner in California. I know I’m not going to get rich from a small restaurant.

I don’t need to spend money on clothes, shoes, or an expensive car. But one of the few things I want to afford for my family is a good education for my 5-year-old daughter, Barbara.

So I’ve been private schooling her at Oak Knoll Montessori School since she was two. They have two campuses – a smaller one on Lake Avenue in Pasadena where they have toddlers and young children. And then the main Loma Alta campus near the mountain in Altadena houses elementary and middle school kids.

This year, my daughter still attended the Lake campus and was really looking forward to starting at the “big kid” school next year, which is kind of like a second home for all the Lake campus kids.

And now that opportunity is gone.

It was chaos when the fires started

The week the fires started, Barbara returned to school from winter break for just one day – Tuesday.

Similar stories

That day, the principal sent an email saying that they won’t be bringing the kids to campus on Wednesday because there are all these winds and they don’t know how it’s going to turn out.

It was kind of chaos that Wednesday – everyone was trying to make sure their friends and family were safe. And so we were evacuating from our house in Pasadena, driving to this friend’s house in Marina Del Rey.

And this person from school called me and she was like, “No, my house is gone.” And we’re talking on the phone and she says, “Most likely, the school won’t be there anymore.”

And Barbara hears this, and she’s not saying anything, but when she hangs up, she’s like, “Did I miss school? Is my house going to burn down?”

So on Wednesday the school was burnt down due to fires. It was a big shock.

The campus on the lake didn’t burn, but it’s still full of ash and there was a lot of smoke damage, so they have to do a big cleanup, and they’re still waiting for someone to come and inspect the facilities in front of it. can be reopened.

Anyone who goes through something like this, the first thing that goes through your mind is that you’re paralyzed because you don’t know, what should I do now?

Thank goodness we didn’t lose our home and were able to return to it a few days later on Saturday.

With no school last week, my friends came over to my house and our kids had fun with each other while we worked.

And this week, the school has offered us this opportunity to make camps for our children from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

But at the moment, we still don’t know what will happen next week.

And for next year I don’t know what the future holds for these schools. I’m still trying to figure out where to send my daughter.

Tuition at Oak Knoll is about $19,000 a year, which is on the low end for any private school in the area, but that was about as much as I could afford.

My business has suffered since the LA fire

Since the fires started, my cafe has seen about 20% of our normal business, in addition to being completely closed for three days.

I don’t think there is any way we can recover from those losses. It feels like COVID all over again.

I am struggling to pay my employees and run my business. And I’ve supported my crew through tough times for our business in the past, but this time, I don’t have the same amount of money in my account to pay their regular hours.

I haven’t cut any positions completely, but I’m just trying to give them 60% of the hours or 70% of the hours they normally have.

So with business looking the way it is right now, I have to think that public school will be the ultimate choice for my daughter. I can no longer make the financial commitment I had planned for my daughter’s education, so now the plan will change.

I submitted all the paperwork for the Pasadena Unified School District lottery to see if I can get him into one of the dual immersion programs, which are bilingual, for next year. And then, of course, we have our local school, but we don’t know what they’re going to be like—thinking that there are schools in Altadena and Pasadena that were lost and burned and affected by the fires.

What we will learn from the LA fires

I know we are going through a difficult time, but I continue to believe that we will get out of this.

When a situation forces you to do something different from what you planned, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just different and will make you work harder. And that’s okay – I’m over it. When I left my country, I knew that nothing belongs to you because you were born somewhere, or born a certain way, or have a certain education.

What I want my daughter to learn from this is that the only thing people can’t take away from you is your spirit, your values, and your education. After a fire, there are so many things that can happen that can strip you of your privileges, but this is what remains and this is what will help you build your future back.