A Pasadena bookstore owner lost his Altadena home in the Eaton fire. His staff responded.
A Pasadena bookstore owner lost his Altadena home in the Eaton fire. His staff responded.
Tom Rogers, owner of Book Alley, is back at work at his Colorado Boulevard store. His employees set up a GoFundMe to help.
On a clear Tuesday morning, Tom Rogers sits at his desk, surrounded by books.
A week earlier, the longtime owner of Pasadena’s Book Alley lost his Altadena home in the Eaton fire. But as he has done since buying the bookstore in 2004, he’s working with books.
“That’s what I gotta do, yeah. My wife and I are currently living in a hotel in Arcadia, and our sons are up with her sister in Thousand Oaks,” says Rogers, a soft-spoken man whose eyes well up more than once during the conversation.
“I wouldn’t want to be pacing the hotel room right now,” he says. “My wife’s a teacher and she had to go back to work this week.”
Despite the array of books in his Colorado Boulevard store, which is a browser’s paradise for used and new books and vinyl, Rogers says he left home with just one thing. “Camera bag. We didn’t even receive an alert. My son just happened to see the fire on the mountain through the window and called me and I said, ‘That doesn’t look good.’
https://www.gofundme.com/f/rebuild-tom-rogers-life-post-eaton-fire
TOM ROGERS, owner of Pasadena's beloved book store BOOK ALLEY has lost his home in the Eaton Fire. A charismatic, compassionate boss and loving father to two boys who work at our store, we come together as a community to help them rebuild their lives after the devastation. The Rogers family selflessly used the last moments they could helping neighbors evacuate and took nothing with them but their vehicles and husky.
Please give whatever you can. Our shop is open for business in Pasadena and online at bookalley.com
We understand that our community is aching and it very well might take a while for local customers to visit our store. We update our website daily with our inventory, any book you buy benefits the Rogers business. And even if you are not in a financial position to buy books or donate, please repost these links on your social media accounts: @bookalley .
I think we can all agree what the world needs now is more bookstores. BOOK ALLEY is an institution that has been here in Pasadena for 33 years. 17 of those years, the shop has been owned by Tom.
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