MLK Day: Thousands of New Items of Clothing Assembled by Hundreds of Big Sunday Volunteers in One of USA's Largest MLK Day Clothing Drives: Volunteers of All Backgrounds To Gather on Monday, January 16, 2023 from 10 AM - 1 PM in Los Angeles to Collect, Assemble and Donate 2,023 Winter Clothing Kits; Opportunities to Participate Online and From Home

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Jan 10, 2023, 08:07 ET

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Big Sunday, one of the USA's foremost organizations connecting people through helping and opportunities to volunteer, now in its 23^nd year, will host its 11th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Clothing Drive & Community Breakfast on Monday, January 16, 2023 at 24th St. Elementary School, 2055 W 24th St, Los Angeles, CA 90018, from 10 AM until 1 PM PT. Big Sunday is thrilled to be safely back in-person this year for its very popular and meaningful annual event – rain or shine! For COVID-safety, the organization will accept only new clothes and shoes of any kind. As always, this event will be a wonderful party with volunteers of all ages, races, religions, backgrounds and ethnicities having fun working together to collect, assemble and donate 2,023 new cold-weather clothing kits for people who are struggling. Kits will include sweatshirts, t-shirts, hats, scarves, gloves and socks. Big Sunday will also collect and donate 2,023 pieces of new underwear, as well as additional items of clothing. Big Sunday's celebration includes a community breakfast for all participants, who will be entertained throughout the day by the Blue Breeze Band. Big Sunday's 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. By special request, Big Sunday volunteers will also undertake several improvement projects for and with the 24^th Street Elementary School community, including indoor mural and gardening projects. Big Sunday has worked with the 24^th St. Elementary School community on many enhancements over the years, and the MLK Day projects will continue these efforts. 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 Big Sunday project exemplifies a key focus of the organization -- working to find common ground. Big Sunday likes to think that "Something in Common" is in the spirit of Dr. King's ideals and something he might have enjoyed.

Big Sunday's memorable MLK Day "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 Big Sunday project exemplifies a key focus of the organization -- working to find common ground. Big Sunday likes to think that this in the spirit of Dr. King's ideals and something he might have enjoyed. Photo Credit: Joel Lipton for Big Sunday

Big Sunday, one of the USA's foremost organizations connecting people through helping and opportunities to volunteer will host its 11th Annual MLK Day Clothing Drive & Community Breakfast on Monday, January 16, 2023 in Los Angeles. Volunteers of all backgrounds will work together to assemble and donate thousands of items of clothing, including 2,023 new cold-weather clothing kits for people who are struggling. Pictured: Big Sunday's 2018 MLK Day event. Photo Credit: Bill Devlin for Big Sunday

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 and go up to $10,000. 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. In keeping with COVID safety protocols, all attendees 5 and up must be vaccinated.

"We're so glad to be able to host our MLK Day event in person for the first time since 2020! We're on rain or shine, which seems appropriate since these past few years have brought us all good times and tough times. And what better time to celebrate our differences while finding common ground than on MLK Day?" 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. Levinson, considered 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 23 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 and build community via helping and is 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."