One year after fire altered the physical and emotional landscape of Pacific Palisades, there’s one place where the community is alive and well. On its bocce courts in their town park. The fire may have destroyed its beloved bocce courts, where over a thousand Palisadians had graced its league teams in the previous three years—but it didn’t destroy Palisadians' need to be together.
Hosted by award-winning songwriter, author, and longtime Palisadian Jimmy Dunne, they set up a temporary bocce home on the lawn bowling courts at Douglas Park in Santa Monica. Palisadians came from all their displaced new locations—to be with each other. To hug each other.
“Bocce had so little to do with it for all of us,” said Jimmy. “A player said to me after one of the games with tears in his eyes, ‘Before, the bocce league was a lot of fun in my life. Now it’s an anchor.’”
In the early summer, the bocce community defiantly leaned into the city to open the park and let them gather. Bill McGregor led the charge to restore the courts and landscaping. With hundreds attending a Grand Opening Town Party, along with inspiring words by Traci Park, Rick Caruso, and Honorary Mayor Ted McGinley, the leagues were back. Thirty-six teams, chock-full of happy Palisadians.
This past Sunday was the season’s Championships, with bocce, awards and lunches for all Palisadians. A community returned to Veterans Gardens not to dwell in loss, but to move together. Bocce balls clicked across the courts. Neighbors lingered in conversation - a celebration of community in community through the love of bocce.
“Here we are playing on these courts with burned trees and homes as our backdrop,” said Jimmy. “When you’re on those courts, with all these amazing people, you just see it. What you see is what promise means. What giving means. What town means.”
What the fires did not take, he reflected, was the character of the community itself. “The Palisadians are unique. They value integrity, trust, and belonging. What wasn’t taken down was the people,” said Dunne.
There was also a harder truth beneath the celebration. Dunne spoke candidly about the moment many residents realized that help was not always coming on the days of the fire. “When we were kids, we all had little fire trucks and told our whole lives that firefighters would always be there to save the day. They didn’t show up,” he said. “Then you realize we’ve got to do it on our own. Fortunately, in the Palisades, there are so many people standing up.”
That resolve has taken shape through public-private partnerships and civic engagement. Dunne pointed to the role of organizations like Steadfast LA, the Palisades Recovery Coalition, Team Palisades, American Legion, and so many selfless individuals.
“Public-private partnerships are what move the needle. That’s how you get things done, from underground utilities to real action.”
Yet the heart of the day remained deeply personal.
For Dunne, the league’s meaning crystallized in the story of Lorraine Colich. At ninety-six, Lorraine received the Martini Award (named after Mike Martini), a yearly honor given to the player who best embodies the spirit of the league. Holding the award in front of a sea of bocce players, she shared that she had lost her husband, her son, and most of her closest friends. Her health had declined. Loneliness had set in. She said that something came into her life that she never expected. Bocce. Bocce, she said, gave her a reason to leave the house, to belong, and to keep going.
That story now echoes through the league. Seniors in their seventies, eighties, and beyond have found connection through the simple roll of a ball. What looks like a game is, in practice, a lifeline.
Dunne joked that at Sunday's Championships, there was more hugging than bocce. But the embrace feels fitting. “What people expected today was a pervasive sadness,” he said. “That’s not what happened. Today was about looking around and seeing that the promise is right in front of our eyes. The people in this town are what’s bringing this thing back.”
Dunne sees the future heartbeat of the Palisades in young families, in parents and children, in the Scouts, Little League games, and our schools, churches, and synagogues. He also sees a responsibility to invest in what shapes a community’s soul. As a songwriter, he spoke passionately about expanding music and art programs for local students and would love to do so at Pali High. “I can’t tell you how much I believe in the importance and merit of the arts,” he said. “Music was the greatest gift of my childhood. Being part of a group, playing an instrument—changed my life. I want to bring that same opportunity to our town’s kids.”
The bocce courts offered a simple truth: recovery is not only about rebuilding what was lost. It is about strengthening what remains. The Palisades will not be the same, Dunne acknowledged. But standing amid laughter, connection, and shared purpose, it is clear it may become something even stronger.
Sometimes the most enduring legacy begins with a ball rolling gently across a court, and a community choosing to gather again.