Photo: Babs Burchfield and Olivia Wilde © Courtesy of Starling Jewelry
Olivia Wilde is releasing a charity necklace to help victims of the California wildfires. The actress has teamed up with her Conscious Commerce co-founder and longtime best friend, Babs Burchfield, along with ethical jewelry brand Starling Jewelry, to create a diamond pendant that will raise funds for two organizations supporting communities impacted by the devastating fires that swept through Southern California in January, killing 31 people and displacing countless families.
A statement shared on Starling Jewelry’s Instagram explained: “Over the past year, we’ve been working together with Conscious Commerce, founded by our friends Olivia Wilde and Babs Burchfield, to create our second charm together. After the devastating fires last January in Los Angeles, we wanted to do something meaningful that would give back to our beloved hometown. We are proud to introduce the LA Charm, an homage to the strength and resilience of LA… This piece is a symbol of the community we’re proud to call home.”
Wilde echoed that sentiment in an interview with PEOPLE, reflecting on the lasting emotional toll of the disaster. “It’s wild that it’s already been a year. So many people we love were directly impacted,” she said. “Some lost their homes; others lost their sense of safety, which is its own kind of loss. Watching people you care about go through something like that stays with you.”
The necklace features the letters “LA” encircled by diamonds and is available in both 14k gold and sterling silver. The gold version retails for $900, with $450 donated to charity, while the sterling silver necklace is priced at $450, with $150 going to the selected causes. Proceeds will benefit the Dena Care Collective, an organization supporting historic Black communities in Altadena and Pasadena, and Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, which provides mental health care, counseling, and support groups for survivors and first responders.
“Los Angeles is a city we love and have lived in longer than anywhere else,” Wilde added. “Creating something here that can actually help people feel right. Both organizations were doing the work before anyone was watching, and they stayed long after the headlines faded. They just get resources to people who need them.”
The project builds on Wilde and Burchfield’s long history of philanthropy and eco-conscious collaboration. The pair first met in 2009 while volunteering in Haiti, an experience that profoundly shaped Wilde’s activism and later led her to co-found the country’s first free secondary school. In 2014, the duo formally launched Conscious Commerce, an initiative that partners with brands and nonprofit organizations to develop more socially responsible business models.
Over the years, Conscious Commerce has worked with a wide range of fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands, including H&M, ThredUp, Anthropologie, Alternative Apparel, and True Botanicals, always with a focus on ethical production, sustainability, and meaningful impact.
Wilde previously collaborated with Starling Jewelry in 2021 on a Sundial Charm, crafted using SCS-certified post-consumer materials such as reclaimed gold and silver and recycled diamonds. Forty percent of proceeds from that design benefited the St. Luke Foundation for Haiti, supporting pandemic relief and rebuilding efforts following a major earthquake. At the time, Wilde explained the symbolism behind the piece to Variety: “We decided on a sundial for the design because it represents taking what we have learned and moving in an even brighter direction.”
Their latest collaboration does the same, this time in tribute to Los Angeles’ resilience, giving supporters a way to help communities rebuild long after the fires have burned out.
(Source: Reuters)
