One of USA's Foremost Organizations Connecting People with Helping Opportunities, Big Sunday, Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary with Special "Greatest Hits" Project with Hundreds of Volunteers at Major School Rehab in South Los Angeles on Sunday, May 19, 2019 from Noon - 3 PM PT; Over 100 Projects To Help Various Communities Taking Place in May as part of Annual Month of Big Sundays (MOBS)

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May 16, 2019, 07:53 ET

LOS ANGELES, May 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Big Sunday, one of the USA's foremost organizations connecting people through helping and volunteerism, will celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the very first Big Sunday with a special project called "Big Sunday's Greatest Hits." This huge project will take place at an under-served public school very close to the Nickerson Gardens housing project, Lovelia P. Flournoy Elementary, 1630 E 111th St, Los Angeles, CA 90059, from Noon – 3 PM PT on Sunday, May 19, 2019. Hundreds of Big Sunday volunteers of all ages, races, religions, backgrounds and ethnicities will be painting murals, planting gardens, cleaning, creating a teachers' lounge, collecting and donating food and clothing, and many more activities, including hosting various enrichments programs. Great food and music will be available for all participants. In classic Big Sunday fashion, the organization is not just doing this for the community, but together with the community. Prior to Big Sunday becoming a year-round organization, when it was still a one, two or three day festival of community service, the largest in the USA, it was traditionally filled with hundreds of projects like the one that will take place on May 19th.

Big Sunday's Annual MLK Day Clothing Drive and Community Breakfast. At Big Sunday's 2019 MLK Day event, more than 1,200 volunteers of all ages, races, religions, political affiliations, backgrounds and ethnicities had fun working together to sort and fold over 30,000 items of clothing, which were donated to several organizations.

Big Sunday started in May 1999 as a single day of service known as Mitzvah Day. Led by its Founder and Executive Director, David Levinson, a Hollywood screenwriter at the time, a team of 300 volunteers completed 19 different projects helping seniors, homeless, shut-ins, the environment and more. This progressed each year, and continued to grow, engaging tens of thousands of people of all backgrounds and affiliations, and eventually outgrew the one day and became Big Sunday Weekend. Big Sunday Weekend was so popular that the organization outgrew the weekend and become an independent, non-denominational nonprofit offering more than 2,000 ways for people to help 365 days a year. Nevertheless, Big Sunday Weekend in May remained the organization's largest event, an incredible three-day festival of helping, the largest in the nation, engaging tens of thousands of people, and eventually expanding to A Month of Big Sundays (MOBS).

Over the course of the last twenty years, 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. Since 1999, Big Sunday has completed in excess of 1.75 million volunteer man-hours. 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.

This May, as part of a Month of Big Sundays (MOBS), Big Sunday has over 100 projects taking place to help various communities. In 2016, Big Sunday realized that it couldn't fit all the projects the organization wanted to complete into just one weekend, so Big Sunday Weekend expanded into MOBS (A Month of Big Sundays) during which time the organization partners with many local nonprofits, schools and groups to host and support events every day in May. This has allowed Big Sunday to take on even bigger projects, reach more people, make new alliances, and more easily fit in with everyone's, and every organization's, busy schedules. As Big Sunday celebrates its 20th year, A Month of Big Sundays remains the organization's major month of helping.

Big Sunday's 20^th anniversary celebration is at the heart of an especially popular moment because people love the idea that people of all ages, from all walks of life, and of all political perspectives want to work together to make the world a nicer place and appreciate what we share. "I can't think of a better way to celebrate our 20th anniversary than a wonderful day at a great school, with nice folks of all ages, from all over the city, working together and enjoying one another. Like we always say at Big Sunday, we're all in it together!" said Levinson. Considered an expert in the field of volunteerism, Levinson is consulted widely by cities, nonprofits and other volunteer groups and is also the author of Everyone Helps, Everyone Wins, How Absolutely Anyone Can Pitch In. Help Out. and Give Back. to Make the World a Better Place.

Big Sunday (www.bigsunday.org) has been connecting people with opportunities to help and volunteer to do good works together since 1999. Recognized nationally, Big Sunday is one of the USA's premiere resources for community building via volunteering all year long. The organization functions as an efficient clearing-house of community engagement and volunteerism, organizing and facilitating a host of ways to bring people together of every background to volunteer, and making it easy for diverse people to participate in good works in unison to support causes that they care about year-round. Big Sunday works as a resource that unites, hosts, and is connected with hundreds of individuals, families and communities. The USA's biggest community service festival – A Month of Big Sundays, (MOBS) is the signature event of the organization, engaging thousands of volunteers from every walk of life working hand-in-hand to make our communities cleaner, prettier, healthier, safer, and friendlier all month long. Big Sunday's mission is to connect people and build community via helping and community service. Big Sunday is driven by the belief that anyone, regardless of how rich or poor, how old or young, your race, religion, gender or ethnicity, can help someone else.

Big Sunday's numerous initiatives include 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; a year-round Really Big Community Calendar with over 1,200 volunteering and helping opportunities for all kinds of interests, talents, passions, and ages; 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; MM@10, WM@10 and TM@10, weekly and bi-weekly community service projects hosted in the Big Sunday offices every Monday and Thursday mornings, and the 2^nd and 4^th Wednesday of every month, when people gather to meet new people, and work together while helping someone else; Corporate Days of Service, offering memorable, meaningful and made-to-order community service events for businesses large and small; 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; Big Sunday's Youth In Action, the organization's popular toolkit for civic-minded kids and their families; and the Annual Big Sunday Holiday Volunteering and Giving Opportunities List, which posts holiday needs and volunteer opportunities during the Holiday Season and is used as a resource by people everywhere who want to help.

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."

Thanks to Big Sunday's Greatest Hits Sponsors: