Day 3: Closing Remarks with Jennifer Gray Thompson
“We are not hopeless against mega-fires. We are not hopeless against the era of climate change. We can do these things together because we are daring to hope and to help each other.” —Jennifer Gray Thompson
2024 WILDFIRE LEADERSHIP SUMMIT
As we bring this transformative event to a close, we are filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Each and every one of you has played a vital role in making this summit a resounding success.
Whether you traveled from near or far, volunteered tirelessly behind the scenes, or tuned in from your homes and offices, your presence and contributions have been invaluable. Together, we have forged connections, shared knowledge, and cultivated a spirit of resilience that will continue to inspire us long after these few days have passed.
To the organizers, speakers, and sponsors who poured their hearts into this endeavor: your unwavering dedication and passion have been truly humbling to witness. You have created a space where communities affected by disaster can find solace, support, and the tools to rebuild with hope.
And to the participants, both here in person and joining us virtually, your vulnerability, wisdom, and commitment to making a difference have been the driving force behind this summit. Your stories of survival and resilience have touched us deeply, reminding us of the incredible strength that lies within each and every one of you.
Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for being a part of this transformative experience. May the spirit of this summit live on in the work we do, the lives we touch, and the communities we help to rebuild stronger and more resilient than ever before.
See you again next year on September 9-11, 2025 Wildfire Summit! Save the date.
Aloha!
Highlights:
- 00:22 Save the Date!
- 03:53 Hopefulness is Hard-Earned
- 06:42 The Last House Standing
- 0917 Aloha Hawaii
Twitter:
The 2024 Wildfire Leadership Summit is over and @jengraythompson leaves us these inspiring words: “We are not hopeless…We can do these things together because we are daring to hope and to help each other.” Aloha, Hawaii! See you next year! #Recover #Rebuild #Reimagine #podcast #wildfire #DisasterRecovery #AfterTheFire #2024WildfireLeadershipSummit #CommunityResilience #ClimateChange #WildfirePreparedness #NonprofitLeadership #HopeInCrisis #SupportingCommunities #SummitHighlights
Quotes:
05:02 “We depend upon funding. We will not charge communities. I will go out of business before that happens.” —Jennifer Gray Thompson
05:47 “My agenda has to be, ‘what do you need, and how can we help?’” —Jennifer Gray Thompson
07:28 “We are not hopeless against mega-fires. We are not hopeless against the era of climate change. We can do these things together because we are daring to hope and to help each other.” —Jennifer Gray Thompson
Meet Jennifer Gray Thompson, MPA, Founder & CEO of After the Fire USA
Jennifer Gray Thompson, named one of Forbes’ “50 over 50” IMPACT Leaders in 2022, has led Rebuild North Bay Foundation since January 2018, transforming it into a national leader in megafire recovery. A lifelong Sonoma Valley resident, she holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from USC and has worked for the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors. Post-2017 North Bay fires, she became Executive Director of RNBF, which aids wildfire-affected communities across the American West. As CEO, she developed the Wildfire Resiliency Network and Survivor Deployment Model, advocated for federal policies, and hosted national Wildfire Leadership summits. Jennifer also created the “How to Disaster” podcast and serves on boards supporting Latino communities and first responders’ mental health.
Connect with After The Fire USA:
- Website: https://afterthefireusa.org/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfterTheFireUSA
- X: https://twitter.com/AfterTheFireUSA
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afterthefireusa/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/atf3r
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuTefxZgWUJkDVoZGZQpxgQ
Transcription:
Jennifer Gray Thompson: I’m going to do some closing remarks in just a moment, but I did want to note that we have set our dates for next year. It’s going to be the 9th through the 11th. I apologize for the continual 9/11 thing, but this way we don’t conflict with climate week or Clinton Foundation, because some of you are fancy, you get invited to that sort of thing. I did want to also take a moment to thank everybody who did so much work to put this together. This is a 9 to 10 month process to do a Summit. With a particular intention, and one of it was to keep it small, so you have access to, you know, people who we’ve curated to be here and effective leaders, and then it’s the span of disaster. It’s true that we may have hurt some feelings along the way, and I apologize if you hear any of those things that we’re just doing the best that we can too out here. But also, I feel very strongly about not becoming like a big convention, because I need you to know each other. And the idea is that whoever you’re standing in front of that you’re like, oh, you know, there’s something here for me to learn from you and that I can learn from me. And I want to keep it so much like that.
Reva and Natalie, let’s start with Reva, don’t try to run away. I don’t think I’ve ever received so many compliments about someone’s emailing skills before. But Reva and Natalie in particular, they were like the unit that kept this train running when I and Natalie is not hearing this, unfortunately, because she’s doing something, because I have other things that also carry my heavy travel schedule and those sorts of things that carry my attention. So without people like constantly intending to like, this is just not even possible at all. Reva and Natalie have just done a fantastic job, and I couldn’t be any more grateful, especially for someone like me, who tends to be very a little type A. I love working with people who have similar approach, and that way I’m not terrorizing them. They like that. Oh, there’s Natalie. Here she comes. We’re gonna Natalie. Can you come in here so we can give you a round of well deserved applause. Natalie Benita, thank you. She also helps me with our Maui delegation, and I can only go to DC on Monday because I know that Natalie has my back her whole time. So also Jen couch for being our Maui Wrangler. That was the title that we gave her. Thank you. Oliver, tech support. Thank you to Tony and Steve over the last few days, I really appreciate that slides lives, your second year recording it, I highly recommend them. And everything will be up in about 30 days. And then we had lots of volunteers come through, sort of quietly to give up their time. And so if we can just, even though they won’t hear it, maybe they’ll see and give them a round of applause. That’s what I look like in DC all the time when they don’t do what I want them to do. It’s true. Okay.
This is from the Tevis fire. This is right after I did not take this photo. This is taken by, I believe, Kent Porter of the press Democrat. We saw a lot of this, and they had just obviously lost everything, but not each other. So I love that photo, and I wanted to take us back to the beginning. Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard earned. If you weren’t here the first day, by the way, this is what I opened with. Unlike cynicism, hopefulness is hard earned. It makes demands upon us, and can often feel like the most indefensible and lonely place on Earth. Hopefulness is not a neutral position, either. It is adversarial. It is the warrior emotion that can lay waste to cynicism, and it’s what we need now more than ever. It says the world and its inhabitants have value and are worth defending. It says the world is worth believing in. In time, we come to find that this is so. Nick Cave. From that to a commercial for how to do this. I did sit in that for a moment, though, and I hope that you know our style has been more evident to you as we finish out this summit, and why it is that we do. The way that why our approach is it actually permeates through everything that we do. But I have to say, in the past couple of years, like getting support for it has been a little challenging at times. Like I’ve said before, we depend upon funding. We will not charge communities. I will go out of business before that happens. It’s not going to happen. So we need other entities to support us, and these are the people that not only are supporting us for this year, but they’re going to help some of our costs throughout the year, our administrative costs, travel costs, and all of those things. They are making it possible also because they’ve been listening to us, and they’ve been watching what we do, and they value it, and they also want to maintain so that this is not only free to you, but when we walk into communities that we’re not trying to find our client, because if we find our client and we can’t completely know what’s going on. Then I have an agenda, and my agenda has to be, what do you need, and how can we help? Period. It has to be that way. So thank you to all of our sponsors who made this possible. We really appreciate it.
I would also like to note that these are the people who are in the room that we will post this on social media. These are from all of the organizations that said yes. That said that they wanted to be here with you, to learn more, to learn from you, and to learn with you. And it’s a very honored space for us that all these people would take the time and also to be vulnerable. A conference is not the place you really think about going to be vulnerable, unless you’re in a cult. Okay? And these are the lessons, so they’re on both. But I just wanted to make sure that you had an idea that these are the organizations. It’s about 140 organizations, about 195 leaders, and we’re very grateful and honored to spend this time with you.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this image of hope. This is a house that was built in 2009 up on Santa Rosa Mountain over here, and in the Glass Fire in 2020 this mega fire came up over St. Helena Road, and it skipped right over this house, even though it has, you know, trees over it and redwoods, and it took out a wood barn right next to it, and then it went. It burned, unfortunately, every home around it. This house was built above coat. My mom built this house in 2009 and she sold it in 2017 and this was the only house left standing in 2020 and so it does work, the things that we’re talking about beyond just each other. So I wanted to give you, leave you with that bit of hope too. We are not hopeless against mega fires. We are not hopeless against the era of climate change. We can do these things together because we are daring to hope and to help each other, and I’m going to finally use, pronounce one thing correctly. Mahalo for being here. Thank you.
I haven’t cried today. So I was like, How can I provide myself this opportunity? By the way, this is Kent Porter in the corner of the room. He probably took that picture. He actually is a big part of the reason why the press Democrat won a Pulitzer Prize after our fires in 2017. I actually call him a walking Pulitzer all the time. Most talented photographer I’ve ever seen, as long as he’s here. I’m just going to point that out. Are we getting in a circle? What are we doing? Circle up everyone. Here we go.
Zeke: Okay, gang. So for anyone that was in here yesterday, we ended yesterday’s event schedule, if you would, with the singing of Hawaii Aloha. And it’s a traditional song that we normally sing at all of the events. It’s unfortunately not been as common as it needs to be, but we’re all going to work together to bring that back. So just so we don’t catch anybody off guard without understanding how this goes. So Steve was able to go and find kind of slide from yesterday that had the lyrics, and, of course, right when we needed to protect malfunction. But that’s okay. We’re going be graceful about that.
I’m gonna give Steve the time he needs to get that connected. How about a nice round of applause for the sound guys in tech guys, I mean, they’ve done a great job. Okay, so for anybody who’s maybe a little gun shy about singing, okay, there’s one part that, even if you can’t read the lyrics, everybody can join in. That’s not from Hawaii, and that’s what we hit the part of the song, of course, if you would, where we go holy and. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna go holy. If that’s the only thing you can do to the whole song, is absolutely fine, but we encourage you to try. What we’re also going to do we didn’t do yesterday. We’re going to try and practice a key at least, so at least I’ll get on the same page. Now, if anybody wants to get fancy and be an auto, Soprano, baritone, base, whatever do you, it’s totally fine. But, let’s try this. Hmmm Try that again. Hmmmm 1, 2, 3
E Hawai’i e ku’u one hanau e. ku’u home kulaiwi nei. Oli no au i na pono lani ou. E hawai’i aloha e. E Hauoli e na opio o Hawaii nei Oli e! Oli e! Mai na aheahe makani e pa mai nei. Mau ke aloha no Hawaii. E Hauoli e na opio o Hawaii nei Oli e! Oli e! Mai na aheahe makani e pa mai ne Mau ke aloha no hawaii Mau ke aloha no Hawaii Mau ke aloha no Hawaii