In response to losing his Paradise home to the 2018 Camp Fire, Charles Brooks initiated Rebuild Paradise, a foundation providing long-term resources for anyone affected by the fire. The foundation helps survivors navigate property surveys, offers pre-approved home floor plans, hunts down grants and more.
NSP: How did the Camp Fire personally affect you and your family?
Charles: My wife, Jennifer, and I had lived in our home for 11 years and started raising Liam, age ten, and Tyler, age eight. We had 6/10 of an acre, all nature in the backyard, tall trees, a trampoline, a swimming pool we put up in the summer. Paradise was like camping with your house, being so close to the mountains, and the kids just had a ton of fun.
I had coached the kids’ soccer, and I still had my coaching bags in the car. On the day of the fire, we left with some clothes, some toys and the dog. We finally escaped to Redding that night. The next morning, I opened up the car and realized, “I’ve got enough stuff to coach a kids soccer team, but we only have two bags of clothes.” It was kind of funny.
My kids’ perspective of the fire and their memories are so different from an adult’s. In fire season, they still have a lot that bothers them, but they’re resilient, fun, adventurous kids, and it’s cool to see them develop through this.
NSP: Why did you decide to create Rebuild Paradise?
Charles: A lot of money came in immediately after the fire, but I’m a long-term thinker. I thought, “Okay, can we create resources that are still relevant five years from now?” That led to Rebuild Paradise. My work was incredibly flexible and gracious to us, but I left my job last May to focus on the foundation. Some projects—mapping, ground contours, high-resolution aerial imagery, drone-based mapping services—I never envisioned when we started this. But we’ve found they create incremental cost savings for people, which adds up when multiplied over the number of people who need to rebuild.
We focus on attracting, incentivizing and retaining residents and businesses to the disaster-affected areas. Right now, for example, pre-construction costs are a big hurdle, both in actual monetary costs and as mental barriers to rebuilding a home, so we help everyday people understand our insurance situation. We share via social media the stories of people who are rebuilding so people can see, “If they can do it so can I.” We want to share the story of our community; I feel one of our responsibilities is to make sure people know we’re still here.
NSP: How does Rebuild Paradise help children and families?
Charles: Families can access anything we offer, including our programs to recognize “the missing middle.” These are lower-middle class, lower-income families who moved to Paradise for affordable housing, then lost their houses. We need those people back. We need the families. One of the things that made Paradise so neat was the age diversity in relationships. Our next-door neighbors have six kids and 13 grandkids. We were always talking to them over the fence and getting their perspective. It would be a shame if Paradise rebuilt and it was just all young families or all retired people; you need that intergenerational support and network.
NSP: What excites you these days?
Charles: I love being outside—hiking, biking, skiing, swimming—so I’m excited for fun summer day trips with the boys in the North State, like Shasta Caverns, Mt. Lassen and Turtle Bay. Right now, I’m super excited about our rebuild. We’ve got a foundation, they’re supposed to start framing soon, and we’re hoping to be in our own home by Christmas!
NSP: What inspires and motivates you?
Charles: It changes daily. I’m inspired by our community and the people that I meet daily who are committing to rebuild, like seniors in their 80’s who say, “Paradise is my home and nothing’s going to stand in my way.” They call and we walk through a couple of things, and they’re doing it!
Even though everything has changed in Paradise, I find so much beauty in the recovery now that the debris is gone and we’re seeing these continual changes. Each time we go to Paradise it’s a little more inspiring, especially when I see how happy my kids are when we’re there. It makes me think, “I’ve got to work harder because more kids and more families probably feel the same way.” When people return, or new people move to this area, they’re going to see this is a great place to live.
The mission of our be the change column is to feature community members from the North State who are actively making a difference in community life. If you would like to nominate someone who is making a difference, please write to pn@northstateparent.com.
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This captures the spirit of an organization that stepped up and quickly became a critical part of the rebuild infrastructure on the Paradise Ridge. While Charles Brooks is extraordinary, he also typifies the remarkable community of indomitable pioneers working for the future Paradise.