Big Sunday happily welcomes you to Our Really Big Community Calendar.
We try to include all kinds of volunteering and helping opportunities for all kinds of interests, talents, passions, and ages! As you’ll see, these include volunteering opportunities (one-time and long-term) as well as the chance to support a nonprofit by attending fundraising events. Plus, of course, we include all of Big Sunday’s homegrown events, too! Whoever you are, and whatever you do, there is someone out there who could use your help.
If you have questions about our calendar, or would like to add a listing, please contact calendar@bigsunday.org or submit your event/opportunity via the button below.
Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) has become an entire season of celebration spanning Southern California. Beginning in August through November, festivals, pop ups, and altars are created in diverse community based organizations, public spaces, schools, and ticketed venues. Today’s interpretation of the sacred indigenous tradition has been remixed and recycled into a commercial holiday blending Mexican, Latino, and American pop culture iconography with the spiritual aesthetics of Día de los Muertos’ indigenous and Catholic influences.
As an official Getty Foundation Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibition site Self Help Graphics (SHG) will present Día de los Muertos: A Cultural Legacy, Past, Present & Future to explore the evolution of the celebration in Los Angeles and the foundational transnational dialogue between the Chicano/Latino community and Mexico that continues to shape the tradition celebrated on both sides of the border. SHG will step away from the cultural appropriation that has repackaged this tradition to examine its Mexican roots presenting a future-focused exhibition supported by educational programming including a printed lectures, artist panel discussion, family-friendly tours, and a catalog to document this historical narrative. The curatorial team includes Lead-Curator artist Linda Vallejo and Co-Curator Dr. Betty Brown (Emeritus Professor of Art History, California State University Northridge) in partnership with SHG staff.
Día de los Muertos: A Cultural Legacy, Past, Present & Future exhibition and educational programming will take place between September 17, 2017 and February 24, 2018 with the main communal celebration on Saturday, November 4, 2017. The exhibition will feature three Day of the Dead “ofrendas” by artists Ofelia Esparza (East Los Angeles), Tijuana’s Gerardo “Acamonchi” Yépiz (Mexico), and Marcus Kuiland-Nazario (Los Angeles) as well as select Día de los Muertos prints, photographs and ephemera from across the four-decade history of SHG’s celebration broken down into a chronological evolution including the unveiling of the 44th Annual Día de los Muertos Celebration fine art limited edition serigraph.
You can help distribute food and clothing to the homeless and poor on any Sunday, from 3:15pm to 5:00pm, in our Hollywood location (1625 N. Schrader Blvd.) Devoting 90 minutes of your time has a positive and heartwarming impact on the homeless that you serve. We are kid friendly too! We encourage you to bring your children and inspire them to give back to their community. (All children must be accompanied by an adult).
Volunteering requires a $20 per person donation, including children. Your gift will go towards funding for the food and gift cards you will help distribute on Sunday afternoon.
Are you a natural problem-solver? Do you want to build relationships with DWC’s residents? Join our Residence Host team!
DWC provides 24-hour/7 day-a-week staffing of our Residence to answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and provide support to our residents. Volunteers help us ensure coverage during our Resident Manager dinner breaks from 5:00pm-7:00pm. This is a great opportunity to put problem-solving skills to work and to meet and build relationships with our amazing residents.
Training and a weekly commitment are required. Individual opportunity
Need an internship? Want to strengthen your resumé? Are you working or retired and want to share your knowledge and wisdom with someone? Youth Policy Institute is looking for volunteers to commit to a 6-month mentoring program to engage and make a difference in the lives of youth. Participants will mentor at-risk youth between the ages of 16-24. Please note: there is a training requirement for all participants.
Types of Mentors
- College and Career
- Group mentoring
- One-on-one
Rewards
- Experience
- Trainings
- Field Trips/Outings
- Personal fullfilment
To apply, please visit http://bit.ly/mentorinterestform.
For more info, please contact Mentor Coordinator Leah Hirst at ysedvolunteers@ypiusa.org or 323-978-1027.
The North Hollywood Interfaith Food Pantry is always delighted to have new volunteers and there are several ways to get involved:
There are several packing teams who pack groceries at Temple Beth Hillel. Dates and times of individual teams are arranged through the Packing Team Coordinator, Leslye Adelman. Please contact Leslye on her email at momof3inla@att.net to get involved.
The Transportation Teams transport the packed groceries from Temple Beth Hillel to First Christian Church located on Colfax Avenue throughout the week. The dates and times of the individual teams are organized by the Transportation Team Coordintor, Chris Wilkinson. Please contact Chris on his email at cgwilkinson@gmail.com to get involved.
Transportation teams pickup Thursdays and Sundays using a provided truck.
The whole process transporting from 150-200 prepacked bags of food takes about one hour to complete.
Thursday pickup teams generally operate between 5:00-8:00PM.
Sunday pickup teams generally operate between 8:00-9:30AM and 1:00-3:00PM.
Food Distribution Teams:
FOOD DISTRIBUTION TEAMS:
The Food Distribution Teams are responsible for distributing food to our clients at First Christian Church. These teams work during our hours of operation on Mondays and Fridays from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Please call a representative at 818-760-3575 during operation hours to get involved.
Listing of Volunteer Positions by Jobs:
Hand Out Food Monday and Friday
Unload Trucks
Food Shelvers
Bag Packers
Bag Movers
Pick Up Donated Bread
Bagel Brigade
Serve on Committees
The Los Angeles Day Care Center provides day care services for low-income families around the garment, flower and produce districts. Volunteers are welcome to assist one or mutiple days to help with the various activities around the classroom, office and recess. Volunteers must complete the required Protect the Mission training and have their fingers prints done prior to working at this facility.
Must be 18 or older and have experience working with preschoolers to volunteer
Become a volunteer for Meals on Wheels West (MOW) Los Angeles and help deliver meals between 10:15 am and 12:30 pm any Monday – Friday! Student volunteers are always welcome at MOW. Younger students can help with various tasks in MOW’s office or be paired with one of their regular drivers or with a parent to help deliver food to clients. High school and college students who already are licensed drivers are especially appreciated as reinforcements to MOW’s regular corps of volunteers. MOW is happy to record your community service hours and send that information to your school.
NOTE: This is an ONGOING weekly volunteer opportunity!
“The Back Nine” is a playable educational golf course about zoning and redevelopment politics in Downtown LA. Each hole of the course explores a different aspect of zoning and its political implications. Specifically the course connects with the planned DTLA2040 rezoning plan which will have dramatic effects on Skid Row.
We’d like to create additional evening hours “sponsored” by interested people and organizations. Sponsoring doesn’t involve money – it just means you’ll commit to bring a group of people to the golf course. We’re equipped with a projector and about 60 chairs, in case you want to connect the visit with a meeting or a discussion. Our hope is that the space can be used as a reading room/meeting room for groups engaged in land use struggles downtown and across LA.
If you are interested and think you could bring 5, 10, 20, or even 100 people to the space, shoot us an e-mail and we can try to coordinate a night (or a morning or afternoon) to keep the space open. rostenwoo@gmail.com or info@lapovertydept.org
Examples of groups:
• your colleagues or coworkers
• people you are organizing with
• your cultural or educational institution
• your students, classmates, or fellow informal learners
• your children’s playgroup
• your friends
The Back 9: Golf and Zoning Policy in Los Angeles is a multidisciplinary art project interrogating the power structures that have literally built Los Angeles. Ever since the city of Los Angeles created the first set of urban zoning codes in the nation, the city has been particularly effective at wielding these codes as a means for disenfranchising communities, historically handing over an extraordinary amount of control to the city’s developers. City zoning codes are now in process of being re-written as part of the Re:Code LA initiative and the new codes will first be applied in downtown. Seemingly innocent changes will effectively endanger the integrity of the Skid Row neighborhood, as current zoning mandates that all housing construction within Skid Row’s 50 square blocks be affordable to the extreme poor. Shifting zoning criteria away from “use” specifically opens the area to market rate development and facilitates the displacement of the thousands of formerly homeless hotel residents now living permanently in Skid Row.
Venice Community Housing has a variety of volunteer opportunities ranging from regular on-going projects to one-time experiences. For more info on VCH’s current volunteer opportunities, please visit http://www.vchcorp.org/volunteer/.
For all opportunities, volunteers must be over 18 and complete a background check, unless offering an approved one-time service. Tutors are required to hold a B.A (A.A will be considered). Regular availability and experience with mentoring low-income youth preferred.
To get involved with VCH, please complete a Volunteer Application and contact Paola Fontana at pfontana@vchcorp.org.
Please note: These activities are ONGOING.
The Los Angeles Day Care Center provides day care services for low-income families around the garment, flower and produce districts. Volunteers are welcome to assist one or mutiple days to help with the various activities around the classroom, office and recess. Volunteers must complete the required Protect the Mission training and have their fingers prints done prior to working at this facility.
Must be 18 or older and have experience working with preschoolers to volunteer
