PASADENA—The College Football Playoff Foundation, bowl partners, and supplies company School Specialty join forces in historic collaboration following the Eaton Fire destruction.
On Thursday, May 8, The College Football Playoff Foundation is giving $1.2 million to help Altadena’s Eliot Arts Magnet School rebuild after it sustained major damage in the Eaton Fire.
The CFP’s six bowls – the Rose, Cotton, Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, and Peach Bowls – each pledged $150,000 to invest in the school’s rebuilding. The CFP Foundation’s Britton Banowsky called it historic.
“We are grateful to the College Football Playoff Foundation and its partners for their extraordinary pledge to help restore Eliot Arts Magnet School,” said PUSD Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco.
“This generous support brings hope and momentum to our recovery and reaffirms the power of community partnerships in rebuilding schools that inspire creativity, resilience, and pride.”
Eliot Arts’ iconic library had just undergone a major renovation in 2023 thanks to a partnership between the CFP Foundation, Pasadena Tournament of Roses®, Pasadena Educational Foundation, and School Specialty—making the loss even more poignant and the rebuilding efforts especially meaningful. In January, the Pasadena Unified School District passed a resolution to rebuild.
School officials said it will take multiple years to restore Eliot, which lost its auditorium, a set of classrooms, and administrative offices in the fire.
Pasadena Educational Foundation’s Patrick Conyers thanked the CFP Foundation for recognizing that “buildings are important.”
“Obviously stadiums that these bowl games are played in, including the iconic Rose Bowl, are special places where special things happen,” he said. “This sort of building is also important because this is the way that students can unlock the world of potential inside of them.”
By Christopher Floch