Following the fire that destroyed the Butte County town of Paradise last year, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company started its Camp Fire Relief Fund and asked other breweries in California and across the nation to join the effort. Brewery Twenty-Five of San Juan Bautista did not think twice about contributing.
Hoping to raise $15 million in relief funds, Sierra Nevada sent its Resilience Butte County Proud IPA recipe to 1,500 participating breweries. On Jan. 11 the Brewery Twenty-Five tap house began to pour.
“We had customers come in for the first time,” said Fran Fitzharris, who co-owns the brewery with her husband Sean. In the first two hours of pouring, the Resilience IPA brought in $500 and the first weekend brought in $1,500.
The brewery expects to come close to, if not reach, their goal of $6,000 for the relief fund.
Speaking of the relief campaign, Fitzharris said it has brought the people together.
Fitzharris said support from the community began after she shared a Facebook post of Hollister resident Kathi Morris, who grew up in Paradise. Morris had posted several photographs of the devastation and spoke of her heartbreak for the town and the people she knows there.
Morris told BenitoLink it meant a lot to her for local people to reach out to those in her hometown.
“My friends and family have lost everything,” she said. “It means a lot to me that people would be willing to sacrifice or be willing to care enough about people they don’t even know, places they have never even been. It does my heart good for Sean and Fran to take part in that when you happen to personally know them.”
The Camp Fire killed 86 people and burned 153,336 acres in November. It is the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
