Over 20,000 Items of Clothing to Be Sorted and Donated on MLK Day as Hundreds of Volunteers of Every Stripe Gather at Big Sunday, Organizer of America's Largest Community Service Festival, to Celebrate the Legacy of Dr. King on Monday, January 16, 2017 from 9 AM - Noon

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Big Sunday, the organization behind the USA's biggest community service festival, now in its 19^th year of helping, will host its 5th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Clothing Collection & Community Breakfast on Monday, January 16, 2017 at the Big Sunday headquarters at 6111 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038, from 9 AM until 12 PM.  Hundreds of volunteers of all ages, races, religions and ethnicities will have fun working together to sort and fold over 20,000 items of clothing, which will be donated to more than seven organizations. 

Big Sunday is often surprised by how many people simply don't have enough clothes, so the organization is pleased to host its fifth annual clothing drive for the disadvantaged.  Big Sunday will also host a community breakfast for all participants.  In classic Big Sunday fashion, everyone is invited to meet someone new and participate in Big Sunday's memorable "Something in Common" photo project, a project that the organization likes to think is in the spirit of Dr. King and something he might have enjoyed.

The response to this year's event has been remarkable.  After a divisive election, Big Sunday is at the heart of an especially popular moment because people love the idea that we're all in it together.  "Despite what you hear, now, more than ever, most people want to focus on what we have in common.  There are so many people – from all walks of life – who want to work together to make our world a nicer place," 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.  Considered an expert in the field of volunteerism, Levinson is consulted widely by cities, nonprofits and other volunteer groups. 

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 volunteering all year long.  Big Sunday functions as an efficient clearing-house of volunteerism and community engagement, organizing and facilitating a host of ways for people of every background to volunteer, and making it easy for diverse people to participate in good works together to support causes that they care about year-round.  The organization works as a resource that unites, hosts, and is connected with hundreds of individuals, families and communities.  Big Sunday is the organization behind the largest annual community-service festival in the USA – A Month of Big Sundays, the signature event of the organization.  A Month of Big Sundays (formerly Big Sunday Weekend), which was started in Los Angeles and is now in several states and internationally in Adelaide, Australia, engages tens of thousands of volunteers from every walk of life.  Big Sunday's mission is to connect people and build community via helping and community service.  Founded in Los Angeles 19 years ago by Levinson with just 300 volunteers, the organization has now completed in excess of 1 million volunteer man-hours, and over 6,000 volunteer projects worth several million dollars in donated in-kind goods and services, and skilled and unskilled labor costs.  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 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 1000 volunteering and helping opportunities for all kinds of interests, talents, passions, and ages;  The ARTList, where artists and arts organizations that have helped somebody else through a Big Sunday project can post and announce their events; the PROBOlist, a list of pro bono skilled services offered to, and requested by, non-profits;TM@10, a weekly community service project hosted in the Big Sunday offices every Thursday morning, 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 Martin Luther King Jr. Day Clothing Collection & Community Breakfast Sponsors:

Elizabeth Naftali
Groundwork Coffee
Banner Bank

Contact: Rachel Schwartz/PR AdvantEDGE Inc.
310.990.2764
[email protected]

SOURCE Big Sunday

Related Links

http://www.bigsunday.org