{"id":183153,"date":"2025-08-28T21:43:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/183153\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T21:43:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:43:13","slug":"local-teen-turns-trauma-into-hope-with-childrens-book-for-palisades-fire-victims-news-releases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/183153\/","title":{"rendered":"Local Teen Turns Trauma into Hope with Children\u2019s Book for Palisades Fire Victims | News Releases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sbhs.sbunified.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Santa Barbara High School<\/a> senior Hannah Hedrick, a 17-year-old survivor of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.noozhawk.com\/montecito_post-disaster_resiliency_infrastructure_improvements_20190720\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2018 Montecito flash flooding and debris flows<\/a>, has channeled her personal experience with natural disaster trauma into a mission of healing for other children.<\/p>\n<p>Her newly published children\u2019s book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Side-Stronger-we-Stand\/dp\/B0F4BMZ8KY\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Side by Side \u2013 Stronger We Stand<\/a>, offers simple coping tools for young victims of the recent wildfires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades.<\/p>\n<p>The timing proved especially poignant for the Hedrick family \u2014 the Jan. 7 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fire.ca.gov\/incidents\/2025\/1\/7\/palisades-fire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Palisades Fire<\/a> occurred the day before the seventh anniversary of the deadly Montecito disaster, and Hannah\u2019s great-aunt and cousins lost their homes in the blaze.<\/p>\n<p>While volunteering at a subsequent clothing drive for Los Angeles wildfire victims at <a href=\"https:\/\/allsaintsbythesea.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Saints By-the-Sea Episcopal Church<\/a> in Montecito, Hannah was inspired to write a simple, rhyming story that gives children tangible skills for processing the overwhelming emotions that follow disasters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough her book, Hannah hopes to remind young readers that even in life\u2019s hardest moments, they can find strength, healing and hope,\u201d said her mother, Candy Hedrick.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah has donated more than 100 copies of Side by Side to schools and libraries in Los Angeles, Altadena and Malibu.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"996\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/2500-082825-Hannah-Hedrick-Side-by-Side-ch-IMG_8875.jpg\" alt=\"Hannah Hedrick with some of her fans.\" class=\"wp-image-744871\"  \/>Hannah Hedrick with some of her fans. Credit: Candy Hedrick photo<\/p>\n<p>She has conducted classroom readings at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.noozhawk.com\/all-saints-by-the-sea-parish-school-a-legacy-of-joyful-learning-since-1965\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">All Saints By-the-Sea Parish School<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montecitou.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Montecito Union School<\/a>, and throughout the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hopeschooldistrict.org\/en-US?showHomepage=true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hope Elementary School District<\/a> in Santa Barbara, directly reaching children affected by recent wildfires and floods.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah recently read her book at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.godmothers.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Godmothers<\/a> bookstore in Summerland, gifting copies to Pacific Palisades families in attendance.<\/p>\n<p>Her work exemplifies \u201cTikkun Olam\u201d \u2014 repairing the world one child, one story, one community at a time.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hannah-hedrick.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click here for more information<\/a> about Hannah\u2019s project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santa Barbara High School senior Hannah Hedrick, a 17-year-old survivor of the 2018 Montecito flash flooding and debris&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":183154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,102988,61094,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-183153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-homes-lifestyle","11":"tag-news-releases","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115108577457574544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183153","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=183153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}