LA County Students Receive 300 Chromebooks as Part of Google and YouTube’s $15 Million Wildfire Recovery Initiative

“Even in the most difficult times, with the power of community — which is the power of us — we will not just rebuild, we will rise,” Pasadena Unified School District Board President Jennifer Hall Lee said Wednesday morning, as she addressed a crowd of students gathered at Pasadena High School.

The occasion was the donation of 300 new Google Chromebooks to students across LA impacted by January’s devastating wildfires — part of a broader $15 million education-focused recovery package from Google and YouTube to help rebuild communities across Los Angeles County.

According to a Google spokesperson, $3 million in education-related funding included the Chromebooks, as well as a back-to-school matching campaign through donorschoose.org, designed to ensure teachers in wildfire-affected schools have the essential resources and supplies to rebuild their classrooms.

The donation, facilitated in partnership with the Los Angeles Education Foundation, aims to support the continuity of learning for the thousands of students who were forced to evacuate or lost access to devices when schools and homes were damaged or destroyed, said a Google official.

“This generous gesture ensures all students stay connected,” Hall Lee added, adding that PUSD’s commitment to providing each student with a device had been tested by the fire. “Many students had to leave devices behind as they fled for their lives.”

Adam Stewart, a Google executive, spoke not only as a donor representative but as a wildfire survivor himself.

“On the night of January 7, we watched the fire get closer and closer to our home,” Stewart recounted. “We lost everything — and our youngest daughter lost her elementary school.”

Stewart said the 300 Chromebooks distributed Wednesday was just the beginning, with additional education-related investments on the way. “We believe in investing in education for the future, and that starts with access to technology.”

U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu praised the initiative and reminded the audience of the fire’s staggering toll: 9,500 structures destroyed and 20,000 displaced across Altadena and Pasadena.

“Pasadena Unified School District was hit hard,” Chu said. “But what I saw was a community that came together — students, teachers, administrators, families — all supporting one another.”

Chu also highlighted Google’s separate investment in AI-powered wildfire detection systems, designed to identify and track fires while they are still small — potentially preventing the kind of widespread destruction seen in January.

Dr. Elizabeth Blanco, PUSD Superintendent, was joined by Principal Roberto Hernandez of Pasadena High School in welcoming the donation, which will also support the district’s career technical education academies in arts, law, and public service.

Kelly Franco of the Los Angeles Education Foundation, which helped coordinate the regional response, called the Chromebook distribution a “mission-driven collaboration” that demonstrates the strength of unified leadership in moments of crisis.

“These are not just laptops,” Franco said. “They are tools of recovery — and a reminder to our students that they are seen, supported, and believed in.”