The announcement came as Lizzy Okoro Davidson, the center’s inaugural director, stood on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange while Paris Hilton rang the Closing Bell, marking International Women’s Day and the public launch of the “Back in Business Recovery Fund.” Hilton’s nonprofit 11:11 Media Impact and the philanthropic arm GoFundMe.org are seeding the national fund with a combined $450,000, with a goal of raising at least $1 million by the end of March, according to organizers. The fund is to be distributed through approximately 150 local women’s business centers nationwide, organizers said.
The original Los Angeles program, which the Pasadena WBC helped administer alongside 11:11 Media Impact and GoFundMe.org, deployed over $1 million in grants to 50 women-owned businesses affected by the Eaton Fire, according to the center. Ninety percent of those businesses remain operational as of March 2026, the WBC reported.
Among them is Orla Floral Studio in Altadena. Owner Renata Ortega lost her home and her studio when the fire burned through the community on January 7, 2025 — the blaze destroyed 9,418 structures, according to CAL FIRE. A $25,000 grant from the program covered a new studio deposit and a floral cooler. Ortega joined Davidson and Hilton at the NYSE on Monday.
“Nothing prepares you for that amount of loss,” Ortega told the Associated Press. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to get back on my feet because it took me years to be able to come up with the inventory I had.”
The program began in February 2025 as a $300,000 initiative planned for 11 businesses, jointly funded by 11:11 Media Impact and GoFundMe.org, according to a Pasadena City College press release. After receiving what organizers described as an overwhelming response, it expanded to 50 grants of up to $25,000 each. The Pasadena WBC received an additional $25,000 grant to provide no-cost business advising; the center delivered approximately 300 hours of coaching to more than 100 businesses, according to PCC.
The Pasadena WBC opened in October 2024, housed at Pasadena City College under its Economic and Workforce Development department. The center is funded through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration and by the California Office of the Small Business Advocate. It was the only community college among 17 institutions the SBA selected nationwide to open a new Women’s Business Center in 2024, according to PCC.
Davidson said the grants addressed a gap that traditional disaster assistance often leaves open. “In some cases the $25,000 will be the bridge to get them to 100% of what they need,” she told Fast Company in March 2025.
The need was acute. More than 1,800 businesses were located in the Eaton and Palisades fire zones, employing approximately 9,600 workers and generating $1.4 billion in annual sales, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. Nearly half of Altadena’s businesses were destroyed in the fire, according to CalMatters.
Hilton, announcing the national fund Monday, said: “When women are funded, they outperform, so I am proud to help women-owned small businesses across the country rebuild, thrive, and continue leading in their communities.” A fundraising page on GoFundMe showed $480,074 raised toward the $1 million goal as of the day of launch, according to the page.
Ortega, whom the Pasadena WBC described as “booked and busy” at her rebuilt studio, had a message for other business owners still in recovery.
“You have to keep going and you have to keep pushing and fighting forward,” she told the Associated Press, “because if somebody like Paris Hilton notices your story and thinks you’re important, then you have to believe in yourself and also think that you’re important.”
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