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Jennifer Garner Shares Her Advice for Talking to Kids About the California Wildfires

Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Garner at The 2018 Baby2Baby Gala sponsored by Paul Mitchell in Culver City, California on November 10, 2018. Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Baby2Baby

 

For nearly a week, devastating wildfires have been raging in southern California. With 44 people dead — and more than 200 missing — the blazes have been declared the deadliest in the state’s history. It’s a topic that has surely come up in the Los Angeles home that Jennifer Garner shares with her inquisitive children, Violet, 12, Seraphina, 9, and Samuel, 6.

Related: Putting the Kids First! These Former Celebrity Couples Are Crushing Coparenting

When Garner, 46, was asked about how she is explaining the natural disaster to her kids, the Peppermint actress stressed the importance of comforting them. “You just tell them they’re safe and that there’s a lot of helpers in the world and that you gaze toward the light,” Garner told Us Weekly and other reporters at the Baby2Baby Gala in L.A. on Saturday, November 10.

The Alias alum is a longtime supporter of Baby2Baby, a organization that provides low-income families with diapers, clothing and other basic necessities such as crib sheets. Garner first learned about the non-profit through her work with Save the Children. 

“We go to Baby2Baby and say, ‘Hey, this is happening, we’ve got this on,’” Garner explained. “And they come right to us and say, ‘What can we do? What do you need?’ And we say, ‘We need this many diapers and this many wipes,’ and they’re on a truck before the end of the phone call.”

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During her 11 years working with Save the Children, the West Virginia native has witnessed poverty at its worst. “One out of three moms are choosing between diapering their kids and feeding them,” Garner revealed. “So when I’m on site visits for Save the Children, the homes I walk into, the children have dirty diapers. You see them and you think, ‘Oh, my gosh, I just want to change this diaper.’ They’re using wipes that have been used over and over and over again. They rinse them out in the sink because they don’t have a choice.”

Related: Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck’s Divorce: Everything We Know

The 13 Going on 30 star shares her three children with ex-husband Ben Affleck. The former couple split in 2015 after 10 years of marriage and recently finalized their divorce.

With reporting by Emily Marcus

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