The smoke clears, the ash settles and the light emerges once again.
In recent years, the Pepperdine community has come together in times of loss and devastation, senior Helena Mekuanint said. The past month hosted a number of wildfires, threatening structures across Southern California.
“Honestly, being a senior at Pepperdine right now, every year there’s been something challenging for the community,” Mekuanint said. “But every single time, people keep track of one another, and it feels like no one is left behind.”
On Dec. 9, many Pepperdine students were led to shelter-in-place due to the Franklin Fire. Just weeks later, on Jan. 9, President Jim Gash announced classes would be held virtually for the week of Jan. 13, due to the Palisades Fire.
”It was kind of scary because I think we all felt it was going to be, not like a false alarm, but we didn’t think we’d actually have to do shelter in place,” Mekuanint said.
Mekuanint, a George Page resident advisor (RA) and student teacher in Santa Monica, was responsible for evacuating her residents to their shelter in place location during the Franklin Fire and evacuated to Camarillo herself during the Palisades Fire.
“I literally felt like I was protected with a blanket of peace almost it felt from the Lord,” she said. “I was kind of ready to just do the job that needed to be done and that was expected of me in my position.”
Throughout the shelter-in-place process, check-ins and ensuring her residents’ safety, Mekuanint leaned on her senior community for support. For seniors, this experience was just another chapter in a challenging journey.
“Everyone’s first instinct isn’t to think about themselves, but to check in on their friends or see how the next person is doing,” Mekuanint said. “We go through this as a whole, as a student body, rather than everyone figuring it out on their own.”
Watching From a Distance
Returning to campus from abroad, in itself, is a unique experience — adjusting to cultural shifts, uprooting routines, and settling back into familiar spaces, sophomore Jamir Rolle said. For some abroad students, the fires were a deeply personal crisis they could only watch unfold from miles away.
Rolle, a political science major who studied abroad in Buenos Aires during the fall semester, found it difficult to witness the devastation from afar.
“It was very stressful keeping up with it,” Rolle said. “I felt like every time I looked, it was just worse and worse. So that was really overwhelming for me.”
Despite the distance, Rolle recognized how these hardships strengthened the community.
“I feel like we are really tight-knit and closer together because our environment was so threatened by the fires,” Rolle said. “There’s a new realization of what’s important.”
For some students, the fires provoked fear and doubt, but were met with solace from faculty and staff.
“I was afraid, but also I knew that the university was gonna work things out,” first-year Audrey Mings said. “So I was hopeful, but I was also really uncertain and afraid.”
Community Support
According to a previous interview with Connie Horton on Jan. 14, vice president for Student Affairs, Pepperdine continues to support those in need. Delta Gamma, in collaboration with the Interfraternity Council (IFC) and Panhellenic launched a clothing drive on Tuesday, Jan. 28, to collect new and gently used clothing for those affected by the Palisades Fire.
“I think when adversity strikes, it’s a unique thing for Pepperdine students and faculty to just immediately do it with other people and ask other people for help or to comfort others,” Mekuanint said.
From donation drives to emotional support, Waves continue to show that in the face of adversity, they stand together, Mekuanint said.
“Everyone is hurting in some way shape or form in different and varying degrees,” she said. “But I feel like the way everyone’s handling it with such just tenderness for one another and empathy for everyone’s situations has been truly amazing just to be a part of.”
For many students, the struggle now may be finding a sense of normalcy after experiencing such upheaval. Such events, in such a short time, are sure to cause a sense of uneasiness and unpreparedness, Mekuanint points out.
“It really helps to honestly talk about the experiences,” she said. “Telling either yourself or friends about what you went through can really help you process it and then be able to then look ahead and move forward.”
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Contact Shalom Montgomery via email: shalom.montgomery@pepperdine.edu
