Originally appeared on E! Online
Jennifer Garner is reflecting on the difficult situation facing Southern California.
The “Alias” alum got candid about the inner turmoil she has faced as her Los Angeles community of Pacific Palisades contends with the devastating wildfires currently making their way through LA County, sharing that she unfortunately lost a friend in the fires.
“I did lose a friend and for our church it’s really tender,” Garner told MSNBC during a Jan. 10 interview alongside chef José Andrés, “so I don’t feel like I should talk about her yet. But yeah, I did lose a friend who did not get out in time.”
The 52-year-old — who shares children Violet, 19, Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12, with ex-husband Ben Affleck — noted that she can “write out a list of 100 friends who lost their homes,” which has left her feeling overwhelmed as her own residence has come out of the fires so far unscathed.
“I feel almost guilty walking through my house,” Jennifer admitted, which prompted her to focus on how she could be an asset during these difficult times. “What can I do? How can I help? What can I offer? What do I have to offer with these hands and these walls and the safety that I have?”
She added, “My heart bleeds for my friends. I mean, I can think of 100 families, and there are 5,000 homes lost.”
“I’ve lived in and around the Palisades for 25 years,” Garner shared. “So I think all of us just — we want to get our hands into working somehow to be helpful. It is not some far away place that you can’t reach.”
To that end, Garner started working with Chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen, which he founded in 2010 and has helped distribute meals during tragedies around the world.
“It’s what World Central Kitchen does,” Andrés explained to MSNBC. “We activated one hour after the fire began.”
The celebrated restaurateur said that as they saw the fires continue to grow, they “kept adding more team members, more food trucks.”
“We’re feeding people in shelters, we’re feeding first responders, we are adapting,” he continued, “because the situation keeps evolving day by day.”
And Garner was honored to be working alongside Andrés and his team, saying, “It is an incredible thing to watch somebody, to watch World Central Kitchen and Chef José just come in and just, ‘We’ve got this handled, don’t worry. We’ve got you.'”
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