Nicole LaJeunesse is a community organizer, learning steward, and long-arc practitioner rooted in lived experience of disaster and recovery. A survivor of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, Nicole brings an embodied understanding of what it means to live through catastrophic loss — and to remain committed to community long after the immediate crisis has passed.
Nicole’s work centers on tending the relational and learning infrastructure that allows communities to stay resourced over time. She is especially attentive to the human realities of recovery: the exhaustion that settles in when leadership concentrates in too few hands, the quiet grief that lingers beneath rebuilding efforts, and the deep need for spaces where people can speak honestly, listen deeply, and remember they are not alone.
At NewStories, Nicole serves in program and organizational support for Regenerative Responders and the Fire-Affected Communities Collaboratories, helping steward learning spaces where practitioners and community leaders can reflect together, share lived experience, and build capacity through relationship. Her work is grounded in care, consistency, and a commitment to strengthening the connective tissue that allows insight, courage, and mutual support to circulate across places and roles.
Nicole is drawn to this work by a deep respect for community wisdom and a belief that regeneration begins within relationship. She brings a steady presence to moments of uncertainty, supporting people and groups to remain whole, self-determining, and connected as they move forward into futures that cannot yet be fully seen.