LOS ANGELES, Jan. 14, 2020 — Big Sunday, one of the USA’s foremost organizations connecting people through helping and opportunities to volunteer, now in its 21st year, will host its 8th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Clothing Collection & Community Breakfast on Monday, January 20, 2020 at the Big Sunday headquarters at 6111 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038, from 10 AM until 1 PM. More than 1,200 volunteers of all ages, races, religions, backgrounds and ethnicities will have fun working together to sort and fold over 30,000 items of clothing, which will be donated to dozens of organizations, helping thousands of underserved and grateful people. Big Sunday will also host a community breakfast for all participants. Everyone attending is invited to take part in Big Sunday’s memorable “Something in Common” photo project, where one and all are asked to meet someone new, and find something – anything! – that they have in common, and then have their picture taken together. This is one of Big Sunday’s favorite projects because so much of the organization’s focus is about finding common ground. “Something in Common” is a project that Big Sunday likes to think is in the spirit of Dr. King and something he might have enjoyed.
The response to this annual event keeps growing exponentially. With its unique emphasis on finding common ground and connecting people through helping, Big Sunday is at the heart of an especially meaningful moment in the USA because people love the idea that we’re all in it together. “We are in very fraught times. But at Big Sunday we keep finding that most people – of all ages, from all walks of life, and yes, different political bents – want to work together to make our world a nicer place and celebrate what we share,” said David Levinson, Big Sunday’s founder and executive director, and author of Everyone Helps, Everyone Wins, How Absolutely Anyone Can Pitch In. Help Out. and Give Back. to Make the World a Better Place. Levinson, considered an expert in the field of volunteerism, is consulted widely by cities, nonprofits and other volunteer groups.
Big Sunday (www.bigsunday.org) has been connecting people with opportunities to help, volunteer and to do good works together since 1999. Founded in Los Angeles 21 years ago by David Levinson with just 300 volunteers, Big Sunday has touched over a 1 million lives , engaging, empowering and uniting people of every imaginable background all over California, from San Diego to San Francisco, in 10 different states as well as Australia and the UK. Big Sunday has completed in excess of 1.75 million volunteer man-hours and the organization has collected and distributed hundreds of thousands of items of clothing, food, toiletries, and other essentials. Big Sunday has completed over 30,000 volunteer projects worth millions of dollars in donated goods and services. Recognized nationally, Big Sunday is one of the USA’s premiere resources for helping year-round. Big Sunday functions as an efficient and impactful clearing-house of volunteerism and community engagement, organizing and facilitating numerous programs and a host of unique ways for people of every age, background and means to volunteer and/or give, making it easy for diverse people to participate in good works together to support the huge variety of causes that they care about. The organization works as a resource that unites, hosts, and is connected with hundreds of individuals, families and communities, engaging, empowering and bringing together tens of thousands of volunteers from every walk of life. Big Sunday’s mission is to connect people and build community via helping. The organization is driven by the belief that absolutely everyone has some way that they can help someone else. Big Sunday events and programs have become more popular than ever, as people search for a way to focus on what we share in common and to celebrate Big Sunday’s belief that we are all in it together. Big Sunday was named by the Points of Light Foundation as one of “10 national nonprofits that are making a tremendous impact on our country’s most critical challenges by mobilizing volunteers…These organizations also demonstrate a collaborative spirit through partnerships with other organizations to help strengthen communities across the nation.”
Big Sunday’s numerous initiatives include the Annual Big Sunday Holiday Volunteering and Giving Opportunities List, which posts over 450 diverse holiday needs and volunteer opportunities during the Holiday Season and is used as a central resource by people everywhere who want to help; TGIW! (Thank God it’s Work!) – a program to help people who are looking for work – but are having a difficult time finding it – get temporary paid work at Big Sunday or at one of the organization’s large network of nonprofit partners (Big Sunday pays the employee, whether the temporary work is at Big Sunday or another nonprofit); the Big Sunday Emergency Fund, a special fund for non-profits and schools who have immediate needs for themselves or their clients; The End of the Month Club to address hunger; Monthly on Melrose to benefit non-profit partners; theBIGlist, an online “non-profit matchmaking microsite” where Big Sunday’s nonprofit partners post their “wish lists” and are matched with those who wish to help; We’re All In The Same Boat Project, where Big Sunday invites a diverse group of people of all ages from all walks of life for a 2-hour harbor cruise, some of whom have never been on a boat before, and all participants are asked to meet at least one new person and just enjoy each other’s company; Corporate Days of Service, offering memorable, meaningful and made-to-order community service events for businesses large and small; MA@2, WM@10 and TM@10, weekly and bi-weekly community service projects hosted in the Big Sunday offices every Monday and Thursday, and the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month, when people gather to meet new people, and work together while helping someone else; a year-round Really Big Community Calendar with over 1,200 volunteering and helping opportunities for all kinds of interests, talents, passions, and ages; SPECIAL² , a unique service giving people marking a special occasion (a wedding, bar mitzvah, birthday, etc.) opportunities to combine celebrating with giving back; The Lemonade Brigade, an easy way to join the Big Sunday family, anywhere and anytime; and Big Sunday’s Youth In Action, the organization’s popular toolkit for civic-minded kids and their families.
For more information, to sign up, or to help in other ways, please visit 8th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Clothing Collection & Community Breakfast page.