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.
There are countless ways to volunteer and make an impact in someone's life at LA Family Housing (LAFH). Below are just a few examples!
Dining Hall: Interested in an opportunity that includes more interaction with clients? Work alongside LAFH’s fabulous kitchen staff to prepare a meal and visit with individual residents in Bridge Housing as they dine. Volunteer individually or groups up to 20 can be accommodated.
Donation Sorting: Are you a natural organizer? Do you like hands-on work? LAFH receives a wide array of in-kind donations such as household items, personal care products, and clothing. Help their staff in organizing and sorting these donations. This is a great team-building opportunity for groups!
Welcome Desk: Are you friendly and helpful? Assist LAFH’s busy staff in fielding resident questions at Bridge Housing for individuals. Individual opportunity. Training and regular commitment required.
Office Support: Are your closets meticulously organized? LAFH wants your help to sort, file, label, and perform other fun organizing tasks that involve reams of paper and electronic data.
Share your Talent: Do you have a talent or skill that you would like to share with LAFH residents? They would love to learn it! Recent activities include filmmaking and journalism workshops, singing lessons, sewing and cooking instruction, sports club and dance classes.
To schedule a tour or learn more about any LAFH volunteer opportunities, contact the Volunteer Services Coordinator at volunteer@lafh.org or 818-255-2775.
NOTE: There are ONGOING weekly volunteer opportunities!
Students have the option for enrolling for the whole 4 weeks, or 2 weeks sessions, either Session 1 or Session 2.
Session 1: July 10th – July 21th
Students will learn how to depict the illusion of three-dimensional objects through the language of linear and tonal drawing. The subjects of the sphere, cube, cone, cylinder, egg and cylindrical ring are possible subjects that will serve as foundational elements for the later study of casts. This program will introduce the student to ideas of linear construction using complex cross-contour analysis of form. Students will also be introduced to the properties of light and shadow necessary in the depiction of form in the first week. In the second week of the program, students will proceed to linear and tonal investigation of more complex, hybrid geometric forms.
Session 2: July 24th – August 4th
Students will be focusing on the complexity of the human head, students will engage in portrait drawings with an emphasis on precision and capturing the idiosyncratic proportions, features, and likeness of the face. Lectures will focus on the structure of the features as derived from classical Greco/Roman aesthetics as well as the Italian Renaissance, and how to utilize structures in decoding/understanding more naturalized forms. During the end of the program students will be introduced to drawing the portrait from a live model.
Students will be treated to Special Guest Artists and LAAFA Faculty for Lectures, Demos and More…
*During the course of this program, students will receive individual projects ranging from simple objects, cast studies, still life and drawing from the live model. Students may also learn the principals of painting. This will be based on their drawing progress in the program.
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!
Free movie screenings, free pop corn, free coffee & free conversations, every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month at the #skidrowmuseum. We screen movies about issues that are important to our Skid Row and downtown community such as gentrification, income inequality and racism.
Currently celebrating its 32nd year, Los Angeles Poverty Department was the first ongoing arts initiative on Skid Row. LAPD creates performances and multidisciplinary artworks that connect the experience of people living in poverty to the social forces that shape their lives and communities. LAPD’s works express the realities, hopes, dreams, and rights of people who live and work in L.A.'s Skid Row. LAPD has created projects with communities throughout the US and in The Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Bolivia. LAPD’s Skid Row History Museum and Archive project is supported with funding from the Surdna Foundation.
About Skid Row History Museum and Archive
The Skid Row History Museum & Archive operates as an archive, exhibition, and performance and meeting space curated by LAPD. It foregrounds the distinctive artistic and historical consciousness of Skid Row, a 40-year-old social experiment. The Skid Row History Museum & Archive functions as a means for exploring the mechanics of displacement in an age of immense income inequality, by mining a neighborhood’s activist history and amplifying effective community strategies. Exhibitions focus on grassroots strategies that have preserved the neighborhood from successive threats of gentrification and displacement, to be studied for current adaptation and use.
Please join the good folks at LAX Dunes the first Saturday of every month to help restore the dunes by removing non-native plants. Please arrive no later than 9:15 am as the gate must be closed at this time. Wear long pants and bring a water bottle. Learn more at www.FriendsOfTheLAXDunes.org.
Register at http://bit.ly/CCD-LAXDunes-map.
For more info, please contact Rod Abbott at rabbit@santamonicabay.org.
Enjoy meeting other people while helping others? Like to cook? If so, Project Angel Food needs you to help prepare healthy meals for the sick! The organization’s devoted volunteers of all ages represent the diversity of Los Angeles. They are at the heart of all Project Angel Food does, so they pride themselves on the strong sense of community amongst volunteers and staff alike.
Kitchen volunteers join a fun-loving group of compassionate people each day to do everything from chopping, stirring, mixing, baking and packaging meals. You don't even need to know how to cook … only how to take direction from their kitchen chefs. They could use your valuable help!
Two shifts are available: Monday – Friday: 8:00 am – 12:30 pm and 1:30 – 3:30 pm. A weekend shift on Sunday is also available from 8:00 am – 12:30 pm.
Please sign up HERE or contact Project Angel Food at volunteers@angelfood.org.
NOTE: This is an ONGOING weekly volunteer opportunity!
STEWARDS AND JR. STEWARDS HABITAT RESTORATION
The Bolsa Chica Land Trust Stewards and Jr. Stewards meet twice each month – the first Sunday and third Saturday – to restore native habitat at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve. Take part at 9 am (till noon). Meet at the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve North Parking Lot (3842 Warner Ave., Huntington Beach, CA).
Come plant and water native plants, remove non-native plants, pick up trash and other maintenance tasks. Help the Bolsa Chica Land Trust heal our local environment! Please “dress for mess” with long pants and closed toe shoes (like sneakers) and plenty of sunscreen. That’s it! You’ll be taken care of from there with plenty of instructions, tools and equipment, information about the ecosystem, and water and snacks. All are welcome, but please note, there is limited access for those with physical disabilities. For groups of 25 or more, please call ahead to 714-846-1001 or email Erin@bclandtrust.org extra equipment & snacks can be provided. Volunt
eer slips are available for school credit.
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.
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.
