Learn more about serving and engaging with your community in a meaningful way.
The Fall Into Service initiative is designed to offer resources to our campus community and encourage a dynamic experience that also meets societal needs.
Make sure everyone gets a meal during the holidays
The Los Angeles Mission has been holding a drive-thru canned food drive since June, welcoming any non-perishable food via contactless drop-off at either of its two Downtown locations Monday through Friday from 8am until 2pm. You can also drop off personal care items and toiletries (listed here) or have them shipped via the organization’s Amazon wishlist.
Support citizens transitioning out of homelessness
A DTLA institution for 40 years, the Downtown Women’s Center provides job training to homeless women, including in the field of product design where residents create items like cards, candles, and T-shirts. While the brick-and-mortar boutiques are currently closed, you can still support them by shopping online on the Made by DWC website. You can also check out what the center is in need of—everything from sleeping bags to shoes—and either schedule a drop off or help the nonprofit stock up via its Amazon wishlist.
The People Concern is one of LA’s largest social service agencies providing health care, substance abuse services, and permanent housing to those navigating a path out of homelessness. Despite a halt on in-person volunteering, the group has come up with plenty of creative ways for anyone to support both the Downtown and Santa Monica centers. Try filling up a grocery bag during your next shopping run and drop it off, order a catered meal to be delivered, provide them with specific sack lunch items, or donate rolls of quarters for laundry among other things. (You can check which facility needs which items here.)
Unfortunately, LA’s homeless situation is seriously dire, but there are a slew of additional organizations working to alleviate the problem. You can find more groups to help via the Homeless Shelter Directory.
Chat with a Senior
For homebound seniors and chronically ill adults, having someone bring a meal to their home is a literal lifesaver. During the pandemic, St. Vincent Meals on Wheels has doubled the number of meals it provides for hundreds more seniors stuck at home. The group is currently seeking volunteers to work as runners, kitchen aides, drivers, and grocery assemblers.
Help Fight COVID-19
All those convenient, drive-thru COVID-19 Testing Centers can’t operate without both staff and volunteers. Don’t worry, you won’t be administering the test, but you’ll be doing things like pre-checking people in, handing out test kits, and guiding fellow Angelenos through the self-administered tests while working under the supervision of the LAFD. Obviously, those in high-risk categories shouldn’t go for this one, but otherwise, you can choose a date to volunteer here.
For more information, please visit: highlandparknc.com/about-us
GENERAL INFORMATION:
The Highland Park Neighborhood Council currently has two opportunities for students to participate in, a short term and a long term commitment.
The short term opportunity would be the ability for students to join one of the ad hoc committees/projects that they have going on.
The long term commitment which would last through June would be for the students to join a committee. Involvement is one meeting per month and any additional support with tasks or projects.
If you're interested, simply reach out to the chair of the committee you're interested in: highlandparknc.com/committees
Students can also attend committee meetings virtually, without formally joining, to gain an understanding what each one is all about.
Our Community Engagement Student Fellows (CESF) provided hundreds of hours of service to thousands of Californians in their communities throughout this pandemic. They registered hundreds of students to vote and mentored and tutored students online – all while transitioning to online courses.
To show our gratitude, we are attempting to raise $5,000 in scholarship funds to support 10 new students in the coming year through our CESF program. Please consider donating any amount that you are able. Your contribution goes directly to the student so that they can continue to make a difference in their communities.
We invite you to watch this short video of Amaya Fox, a student at the University of San Francisco. You can hear directly from her about her experience and her impact on her campus and community. Click here for more information.
Service Resources
Support Los Angeles from the comfort of your own home. From the #MillionMaskChallengeLA to joining a call party for Wellness Checks, the following opportunities are fun and flexible ways to serve LA remotely. Click here for more information.
Volunteer from anywhere with VolunteerMatch. Explore hundreds of virtual volunteer opportunities in cause areas like health and medicine, education, and community building—that you can do from a computer, from home, or anywhere. Click here for more information.
Use this SEARCH TOOL to find a volunteer opportunity in your area. Yup, it's as easy as that!
When you think about volunteers, the typical image of a team or community group planting a garden, revitalizing a local park or painting a lively mural at a school comes to mind. Yet all around the globe, at any given time, thousands (if not millions) of engaged citizens volunteer virtually — using their computers, the Internet, even their smart phones.
Virtual volunteers can complete short-term or long-term tasks, in whole or in part, typically off-site from the organization or person being assisted. If you’ve got access to a computer, thousands of different volunteer projects and roles are available to you—from your home, the library, a coffee shop, anywhere with an Internet connection.
Click here for a robust resource list categorized by activity, impact area or beneficiaries.
Oxy Partners
The mission of the Center for Community Based Learning (CCBL) is to institutionalize curriculum-based civic engagement.
CCBL’s civic engagement approach, based on community organizing practices, aims to enrich students' learning and commitment to social responsibility. CCBL brings together students, faculty, and community partners as co-thinkers and collaborators in addressing social justice issues.
Since its creation in 2001, CCBL has developed resources and provided leadership to institutionalize community based learning at Occidental College. The goal of community based learning is to enhance student learning and faculty engagement by connecting academic study and civic education through reciprocal, mutually beneficial relationships with the greater community. CCBL also collaborates with other offices on campus, as well as state, national, and international networks.
The Community Based Learning and Research (CBLR) faculty committee focuses on enhancing curriculum-connected community engagement and community based research.
Oxy Arts is a vital public space bringing together the campus community, the Northeast Los Angeles community, and local and regional artists in socially conscious dialogue and engagement. They seek to share, connect and hold space for ideas and curiosity. You are welcome here.
Oxy Arts programs across mediums—film, visual art, performance, writing and music. It also serves as a gateway to Oxy’s five academic arts majors and minors: Art & Art History, Interdisciplinary Writing, Media Arts & Culture, Music, and Theater.
SLICE brings together programs focused on leadership, activities and community engagement in one office to foster a robust student experience on and off campus. It provides students with a variety of opportunities to put Occidental’s values into action.
Whether you are interested in starting a club, being involved in student government or engaging with a local community organization, SLICE can help guide and support your passions. Our community partners can help you apply your theoretical knowledge of social justice and become an agent for change. SLICE also supports Oxy students with scholarships, fellowships and other special funding.
There are many ways for you to get involved that can have a real impact on your own life, the life of your fellow students as well as the community. We’re here with the tools and resources you need to make your Oxy experience the best it can be.
Community Partners
Other Events & Initiatives
Each year since 1947, the “Marine Toys for Tots Program has been delivering a message of hope to less fortunate youngsters.” This special program provides holiday gifts to less fortunate children throughout our country. Families can participate by donating money and/or gifts (new, unwrapped toys). The website has information regarding communities being served and where you can find drop-off locations.
Each year, southern California firefighters and ABC 7 have joined forces to make the holiday season a happier one for less fortunate children in our communities. “Over the past two and a half decades, the Spark of Love Toy Drive has successfully collected more than nine million toys!” This year because of COVID-19, donating will look different. Families can participate by donating funds and/or donate a toy through the Spark of Love gift registry available online.
This year, we're featuring giving opportunities with the LA Food Bank where on #GivingTuesday your gift counts TWICE as much!
The COVID-19 pandemic is causing unprecedented levels of demand for food assistance in Los Angeles County. You can help provide meals for those struggling with hunger in our community by making your generous gift today. GIVE NOW and your gift will be matched by generous donors.
Whether it’s making someone smile, helping a neighbor out, showing up for an issue or people we care about, or giving some of what we have to those who need our help, every act of generosity counts and everyone has something to give.
Identify your gifts, pick a cause that gets you fired up, and give back - not just for GivingTuesday on December 1, 2020, but every day. Learn more at givingtuesday.org
In order to deliver 1,000 meals this Thanksgiving (that would double last year’s number), Project Angel Food, a nonprofit that focuses on feeding critically ill, homebound community members, is looking for 200 volunteers to make just five deliveries each on Thanksgiving Day. Sign up online to choose a preferred shift, then show up at the organization’s Hollywood location where the meals you’ll be delivering will be brought to you car (and where you might spot a celebrity greeter or two). And then you’ll be off to make a huge difference in the lives of many who might be alone this holiday.
Westside Thanksgiving, a large-scale dinner for those in need that’s been taking place for more than three decades, is canceled this year but its organizers will instead be distributing meal cards to the people it normally feeds. Every $10 donation provides a meal card to someone who needs it and you can donate online.
Since Union Station Homeless Services isn’t able to put on its annual Dinner in the Park this year, the organization will be hosting multiple private Thanksgiving dinners for residents at its private facilities as well offering its clients with access to kitchens meal boxes and prepared meals to-go on the two Wednesdays before Thanksgiving. That means, as usual, they need hundreds of frozen turkeys, specific holiday-related non-perishable food items (like boxes of mac and cheese and stuffing, for example), and other supplies donated ahead of time. You can check their wishlists and either drop off items in person at their Pasadena location on weekdays until Thanksgiving or send non-perishable items through Amazon.
Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is an annual program where people come together across the country to draw attention to the problems of hunger and homelessness. Participating groups spend the week holding a series of educational, service, fundraising, and advocacy events.
Want to help address hunger and homelessness in your community? Whether you want to participate as an organizer, a volunteer, a donor, or an attendee, there are lots of ways to get involved with your local Awareness Week. To take action, CLICK HERE.
Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is sponsored by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.