Village Rising<\/a>, a foundation created to revitalize communities disrupted by crisis or disaster.<\/p>\nFriedman, whose background is in fundraising, started the nonprofit in 2018 in response to the Woolsey fire, and later helped victims of the Getty fire in 2019 before pausing the operation during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
![\"Pam](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756039693_778_\")
<\/p>\n
Pam Shriver, right, and friend Ilise Friedman play leading roles in the Village Rising Foundation, a nonprofit that works to revitalize communities disrupted by crisis or disaster.<\/p>\n
(Sam Farmer \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
When friends from around the world began calling to donate after the January fires, Friedman restarted Village Rising with Shriver, now the organization\u2019s president. It\u2019s predominantly a volunteer operation with improving schools and sports programs at its core.<\/p>\n
\u201cTennis is our through line,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cOur mantra is, \u2018Build a court, build a community.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Shriver was in Kona, Hawaii, with her sons when the fires broke out, on her way to cover the Australian Open. When the severity of the situation became apparent, she came back to Los Angeles and checked on her home before evacuating to a hotel in Marina del Rey.<\/p>\n
While she was staying there, her son\u2019s Dodge Durango was stolen from the parking lot. In the back of the heisted SUV were many of her major championship trophies, including five from the French Open, seven from the Australian and one from Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
The car was never recovered, but about 10 days after the theft someone dropped off the trophies behind the hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it was either the car or the trophies that would never come back, it worked out much better for me,\u201d she said. \u201cMy son might argue otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n
1 <\/p>\n
![\"Pam](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756039693_316_\")
<\/p>\n
2 <\/p>\n
![\"Tennis](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756039694_730_\")
<\/p>\n
1.<\/strong> Pam Shriver and Ilise Freidman walk around the tennis courts at the Palisades Tennis Center on Aug. 16. 2.<\/strong> Tennis balls scorched by the Palisades fire were still on the courts at the Palisades Tennis Center. (Sam Farmer \/ Los Angeles Times) <\/p>\nCompared to what others have lost, the stolen car is a mere inconvenience. Enter Village Rising, whose goal is to identify overlooked parks and schools damaged by the fire, raise funds and distribute grants quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want the money to flow through to where it\u2019s needed quickly,\u201d Shriver said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to sit on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tennis connection is obvious, but Shriver also has served on four private school boards, and her boys attended local schools in the Palisades. She\u2019s particularly focused on underfunded schools in the Altadena area where fire damage has waylaid rebuilding efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about lifting up places that were left behind,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In her storied playing career, Shriver reached the women\u2019s singles finals of the U.S. Open in 1978 at age 16, won an Olympic gold medal in 1988, but is best known for her doubles play, mostly with Martina Navratilova. They won seven Australian Open, five Wimbledon, four U.S. Open and four French Open titles.<\/p>\n
Now, a new challenge to conquer alongside Friedman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is like doubles,\u201d Shriver said.<\/p>\n
And the strength of her game back then?<\/p>\n
Naturally, service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tennis ball, an undisturbed artifact of a horrific wildfire, sat just off the Pacific Palisades court and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":171710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[21053,38341,1582,276,2332,718,5025,60561,17255,2961,224,5337,38438,6524,67830,11645,8763,98072,1464,98071],"class_list":{"0":"post-171709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-altadena","9":"tag-australian-open","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-car","13":"tag-community","14":"tag-fire","15":"tag-friedman","16":"tag-january-fire","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-normalcy","21":"tag-operation","22":"tag-pam-shriver","23":"tag-school","24":"tag-son","25":"tag-sport-court","26":"tag-tennis","27":"tag-village-rising"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115083825466432699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}