Displaced Altadena charter school gets temporary digs

EATON FIRE RECOVERY

The office space came courtesy of the Blackstone investment firm, its charitable arm

Odyssey Charter South 6th grade students attend in class at ArtCenter College of Design on Feb. 12. Odyssey Charter South classes were relocated to the college after the Eaton fire damaged their Altadena campus. Hans Gutknecht — Staff Photographer

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Odyssey Charter Schools, which lost their Altadena campuses in the Eaton fire, celebrated new digs on Wednesday, Feb. 19.

The schools, which serve more than 800 K-eighth-grade students and whose Altadena campuses were destroyed or damaged by the Eaton Fire, secured a temporary, larger, and “more suitable learning space” for about 175 students in grades 4 through 8 starting Monday, Feb. 24, 2025.

Blackstone Charitable Foundation, a charitable arm of the investment firm Blackstone, donated office space at its shopping center, One Colorado, in Old Town Pasadena.

Break a Difference, a non-profit partner of the firm, on Wednesday, along with dozens of volunteers, finished converting the office space into what will become a school for the students for the rest of the school year.

They’ll get classrooms, new teachers’ lounge, cozy reading nooks and a mural. Odyssey officials said the firm was providing the space at no cost and offering a $200,000 grant through the foundation to continue its education programs during the rebuild. The foundation also donated $300,000 to the Pasadena Community Founation Eaton Canyon Fire Relief and Recovery Fund, California Community Foundation Wildfire Recovery Fund and LA Fire Department Foundation.