Breathe Easy LA

In January 2025, as wildfires tore through Los Angeles, the danger did not stop at the fire line. Smoke and toxic particles filled the air across the city. On some days the air quality index pushed past 300, a level hazardous to everyone and acutely dangerous for children, the elderly, and anyone with a respiratory condition. Air purifiers became essential. They also became nearly impossible to get: stores sold out within hours, and the price put them out of reach for many of the families who needed them most.

Breathe Easy LA was the answer.

It began with Kath Nash, a Los Angeles designer, who set out to source and distribute free air purifiers to families struggling with the hazardous air. As the need grew, Dydine Umunyana Anderson and Kind Kulture joined to expand the effort. What started as neighbors helping neighbors became a coordinated relief campaign.

From $3,390 to a Citywide Effort

In its first weeks, Breathe Easy LA raised $3,390 from the community and placed 34 air purifiers and 9 humidifiers directly into the homes of families in need, free of charge.

Then it grew. The team wrote to air purifier manufacturers across the country, asking them to help a city that could not breathe. Coway answered with a donation of 300 air purifiers: thirteen pallets, an in-kind contribution valued at $31,569, delivered to Los Angeles on February 7, 2025. Vesync added 120 more, valued at roughly $24,000. Stratia, a Los Angeles company, opened its warehouse to receive and stage the delivery.

Distribution Day

On Saturday, February 15, 2025, Breathe Easy LA held its Community Distribution Day at Carla’s Fresh Market in Highland Park. Volunteers worked in shifts through the day, helping families carry home the clean-air equipment they needed. There was an EBT and CalFresh sign-up on site, flyers in English and Spanish, and meals for the volunteers donated by Maury’s and Hail Mary. It was, start to finish, what it had always been: neighbors showing up for neighbors.

Why It Mattered

Breathe Easy LA was not a storytelling program or an exhibition. It was Kind Kulture doing something an institution rooted in human dignity must sometimes do: meeting a community’s most basic need, in a crisis, without waiting to be asked.

Every one of the 454 air purifiers was given out, reaching close to 400 households across Los Angeles, because a designer and a nonprofit decided that the air a family breathes is not negotiable.

The People Who Showed Up

Breathe Easy LA ran on volunteers. They sourced equipment, designed the flyers, drove pallets across the city, set up before the store opened, greeted families, and carried air purifiers to waiting cars, working in shifts until the last one was handed over.

The Community Distribution Day was coordinated by Kath Nash. The crew that made it possible came from across Los Angeles: colleagues who signed up through Adobe’s employee volunteer program, neighbors who live on the same streets as the families they served, and friends who lent their hands, their design work, and their weekends. None of it happened without them.

Partners in Relief

Breathe Easy LA was made possible by partners who moved quickly when the city needed them: manufacturers, businesses, and volunteers who answered the call.

How It Unfolded