Going from middle school to high school is a big enough change as is. But Avery Colvert, who founded Altadena Girls in the wake of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year, is juggling more than the average 15-year-old. “I feel like I’ve lived many different lives since then,” Colvert says. “It hasn’t even been a year, but I feel like I’ve gone through so much from January til now. I feel like I am a whole different person, but I know I’m the same person.”

When the Eaton Canyon Fire razed the North Los Angeles community earlier this year, Colvert watched as the flames destroyed her school and many of her friends’ homes. She pulled together her resources to create the Altadena Girls, a distribution center that specialized in helping teen girls rebuild after the fire, and

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