MLK Day: One of USA's Largest Volunteer MLK Day Clothing Drive Events - 20,000+ New Items of Clothing Sorted and Assembled by Over a Thousand Big Sunday Volunteers of All Backgrounds on Monday, January 15, 2024 from 10 AM - 1 PM PT in Los Angeles; Over 2,024 Winter Clothing Kits will be Assembled and Donated; Opportunities to Participate Online and From Home

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Jan 11, 2024, 08:52 ET

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Big Sunday, one of the USA's foremost organizations connecting people through helping and opportunities to volunteer, now in its 25^th year, will host its 12th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Clothing Drive & Community Breakfast on Monday, January 15, 2024 at 42nd Street Elementary School, 4231 4th Avenue, Los Angeles 90008, from 10 AM until 1 PM PT. This popular event will be an exciting block party with volunteers of all ages, races, religions, backgrounds, beliefs and ethnicities having fun working together to collect, assemble and donate 2,024 new cold-weather clothing kits for people who are struggling. Kits will include sweatshirts, t-shirts, hats, scarves, gloves and socks. Big Sunday volunteers will also sort through many other items, including clothing, donated from a variety of vendors. Big Sunday's celebration includes a delicious big community breakfast for all participants, who will be entertained throughout the day by the Blue Breeze Band. Big Sunday's extremely popular – and growing - staff-curated Civil Rights Exhibit will be on view, along with several fun arts and crafts projects for volunteers to create that will benefit several local non-profits. Volunteers will also lend a hand with the Big Sun Day mosaic art project, a year-round art project that is a big hit with the Big Sunday community. The event will include a special school beautification project at 42nd Street Elementary, including painting many murals, inside and out. Everyone attending will be invited to participate in Big Sunday's memorable "Something in Common" photo project, where one and all are asked to meet someone new, and find something – anything! – that they have in common, and then have their picture taken together. This beloved annual MLK Day Big Sunday project exemplifies a key focus of the organization – uniting people of all ages, backgrounds and beliefs to work together for a common cause. Big Sunday likes to think that "Something in Common" is in the spirit of Dr. King's ideals, and something that he worked hard to fulfill.

Big Sunday will host one of the USA's largest volunteer MLK Day Clothing Drive events, with 20,000+ new items of clothing sorted and assembled into winter clothing kits by over a thousand Big Sunday volunteers of all backgrounds on Monday, January 15, 2024 from 10 AM - 1 PM PT in Los Angeles. Over 2,024 winter clothing kits will be put together and donated at Big Sunday's 12th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Clothing Drive & Community Breakfast. Photo credit: Bill Devlin Photography.

Everyone attending will be invited to participate in Big Sunday's memorable "Something in Common" photo project, where one and all are asked to meet someone new, and find something - anything! - that they have in common, and then have their picture taken together. This beloved annual MLK Day Big Sunday project exemplifies a key focus of the organization - uniting people of all ages, backgrounds and beliefs to work together for a common cause. Photo credit: Joel Lipton Photography.

People can participate in several ways: volunteers can collect and pack items in-person at the MLK Day event, and/or via Big Sunday's registry, or by sponsoring kits, which are $25 each. People can also help by leading a new clothing collection and dropping off donations at the Big Sunday headquarters in Los Angeles, and/or by making cards at home that will be included with these warm clothing gifts. Big Sunday also welcomes event sponsors, which helps keep this program free for everyone. Sponsorships start at $500. The new clothing, which will help thousands of underserved and grateful people of all backgrounds, will be provided to dozens of organizations, many of whom will be on-hand at the MLK Day event to collect the donations for their respective communities.

David Levinson, Big Sunday's founder and executive director, said, "At Big Sunday, we always love our MLK Day event. Sure, we're thrilled to be giving away so many clothes, and painting all these murals, and hosting our ever-growing Civil Rights exhibit – but we're especially happy to be bringing so many wonderful people, of all ages and backgrounds, together, to help others, to break bread, and to enjoy one another." Author of Everyone Helps, Everyone Wins, How Absolutely Anyone Can Pitch In. Help Out. and Give Back. to Make the World a Better Place, Levinson, an expert in the field of volunteerism, is consulted widely by cities, nonprofits and other volunteer groups.

Big Sunday (www.bigsunday.org) has been connecting people with opportunities to help, volunteer and to do good works together since 1999. Founded in Los Angeles 25 years ago by David Levinson with just 300 volunteers, 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, and in more than 20 different states as well as Australia and the UK. Big Sunday has completed in excess of 1.75 million volunteer man-hours and the organization has collected and distributed hundreds of thousands of items of clothing, food, toiletries, school supplies, furniture, appliances and other essentials. The organization functions as an efficient and impactful clearing-house of volunteerism, giving and community engagement. Big Sunday produces, promotes or sponsors over 2000 unique helping opportunities every year, which engage, empower, and unite people of every age, background and means to work together to support the huge variety of causes that they care about. Big Sunday's mission is to connect people through helping. Big Sunday builds community driven by the belief that absolutely everyone has some way that they can help someone else. 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."