Help Rebuild Our Small Business After A Devastating Fire

Allyson Nobles is organizing this fundraiser.

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Introduction

Hi there, we're Trevor Holmes, and Ally Nobles and we are HONO, a video production agency based in Los Angeles.

On August 20th, there was a fire at the ExtraSpace storage facility on West Manchester in Los Angeles. Our storage unit and most of our belongings were destroyed, and we need your help to get back on our feet! See our story below for more information about what happened.

How You Can Help

Donation: Anyone able to donate to our cause, we would be forever grateful.
Share Our Story: We realize we can’t do this without your help. If you can, please share our story with your expanded community for further reach.
Production Services: If you've worked with us before and could use our production services again, or maybe you know someone that would be a good client for HONO, we would love to hear from you.
Housing: If you know of any apartments or sublets opening up, or house/pet sitting opportunities in the Los Angeles area, we would love your help returning to our home base. We have been staying with family and friends during this time and are hoping to make it back to Los Angeles in the coming weeks so we can begin the remediation process and restart our search for a new home.
Legal Advice: If you've been through something like this before or have any legal advice, we would love to hear from you as we are working with others that were affected to get compensation from ExtraSpace for their mishandling of this disaster.
Send Us Footage: Lastly, If you have any photos or videos wearing our merch or from times when you've joined us for work or play, we would be so grateful to see HONO through your eyes over the years. You can upload any footage to this link: https://www.hono.la/send-us-footage

Our Story

Ally and Trevor have both lived in Los Angeles for eight years now, meeting while surfing in Venice at the start of the pandemic. In 2021, we decided to combine our talents to start HONO (for our last names: Holmes & Nobles) with a focus on end-to-end video production and engaging communities through local events. Over the last 3 years, we’ve built our business from the ground up, working with a network of freelance creatives, servicing a wide variety of clients, and operating a successful brick and mortar production studio in Venice Beach.

In 2024, we decided to take some time to regroup on the next chapter in HONO's journey. We first moved out of our Venice production studio and later our apartment in Marina Del Rey to prepare to move into a new hybrid space where we could work and live in Los Angeles. To help save money while securing a new space, we packed up all our belongings and production gear in a nearby storage unit and hit the road to visit family while our things were housed safely in LA.

Shortly after our departure from LA in August, we were notified that there was a fire at our storage unit that affected all units on our floor as well as the four floors below. We were forced to relocate what we could salvage of our belongings by September 6th, sending Ally back to LA to arrange evacuating our unit and temporarily moving what was left into a POD. We’ve been told we legally cannot move into another unit (at ExtraSpace or elsewhere) until we get our things assessed by a remediation team, which we have now learned is a complicated and expensive process.

Though ExtraSpace told us our unit was spared from the immediate flames of the neighboring unit, their recovery team deemed our floor a 100% loss due to the extensive smoke and water damage. Though initially hopeful, upon returning to LA and to the storage unit, we realized nearly half of our belongings were a complete loss, and had to be thrown away immediately. This included much of our video production gear, all of our HONO merch and other HONO-related items, musical instruments, furniture, sentimental treasures, and countless other irreplaceable items. The other half, though now moved into the POD, has an uncertain future as even the most securely stored items could have still received damage due to spores from smoke and mold spreading while our unit sat.

ExtraSpace Storage has provided little assistance or advice for us and the hundreds of others affected. Due to misleading fine print in our insurance, we are only qualified to receive up to $2000 in assistance, and now are left to cover everything else ourselves, starting with the cost of remediation to assess what is salvageable of the things we were able to get out of our unit.

Our Goal

We’ve currently got our goal set to $8,000, which helps to cover the costs already accrued by moving from the storage unit into the POD earlier this month, plus the estimated cost we have been quoted for a remediation team to finally let us know the fate of our remaining items.

Anything more we receive will be graciously going toward helping us secure our next home and HONO studio space along with replacing what we can of what we’ve lost.

Our Commitment

With your help, our hope is to finally start the remediation process and get back to Los Angeles by the end of the year, with a new home and space where we can continue to grow HONO and our dreams of nurturing and expanding community far and wide.

We’ll keep you updated on our progress with this campaign via our Instagram, and when we're back screen printing again, we’ll be sure to make you a hat or coozie to show our boundless appreciation for your kindness.

About Our Business

Three years ago, Trevor and Ally started HONO, a video production agency and a brainchild of whacky creativity, unbridled joy in our work, and endless fun with our community. We grew from a two-person team working from our little home to a full service production agency, taking over Vessel Gallery just off the Venice boardwalk and turning it into a vibrant production studio for high end shoots, hiring over 50 creatives for projects during our time there, as well as operating an event space hosting film releases, concerts, comedy shows, book readings, karaoke parties, sports viewing parties and so many other fun community gatherings.

Our vision for HONO is to find a new hybrid space where we can work and live in Los Angeles. Continuing to host community events, offering rental space for creatives, and using our space to create and bring ours and our clients visions to life!

Ally & Trevor sitting in director’s chairs @ HONO HQ

One of our many shoots @ HONO HQ

Trevor & Ally on set in Malibu for BIG SIS music video

Trevor @ HONO's storage unit (pre-fire)

HONO Video Production Reel 2023

Contact Information

To get in touch directly you can email us or via our website at: https://www.hono.la/contact

To dm us or follow our campaign on social media, visit our Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/hono___la/

Onward

Though this has been a frustrating and disheartening time for us, we also feel that it really puts life in perspective. We are grateful to be here another day, for our health, to have each other, and to have a second chance at building something great together.

Most of all, we are truly so thankful for our amazing communities in Los Angeles, the west coast, east coast, gulf coast, and beyond. This has not crushed our spirit, and with your help, we will be back at it hosting you for another HONO event in the not too distant future.

We thank you for any way you can help, and hope to see you when we find our new home.

Thank you,

Ally & Trevor

https://hono.la

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