Los Angeles, CA. Big Sunday is a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles. Founded in 1999, it is responsible for an annual community service event in Los Angeles, also called “Big Sunday”, which has grown from its beginnings as a “Mitzvah Day” at a local Jewish temple to become the largest such community service event in the United States. This summer, Big Sunday is hosting three outdoor shows with live music at its headquarters in Melrose. Guests can get an admission ticket by bringing non-perishable food items, new socks or underwear, new footwear, or hygiene products. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. All of these donations will be received by youth facing housing insecurities or families that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Backlot Summer Concert on June 25th. Picture provided by Big Sunday.
On June 25th, Big Sunday hosted a live music and drag show in honor of Pride Month. The organization partnered with LA Pride to create Pride Makes A Difference. For the entire month of June, Big Sunday and LA Pride focused on creating events that benefitted the Los Angeles community, through volunteering, donations, and so much more. There are two more Backlot Summer Nights coming up, on July 23rd and August 13th. These events are art shows with live music.
Backlot Summer Concert on June 25th. Picture provided by Big Sunday.
Big Sunday’s Summer List for 2021, titled the “Summer of Love.”
There are also other ways Big Sunday is encouraging people to get involved this summer. “Summer of Love,” their 4th Annual Summer List, includes 250 diverse ways people can help and get involved all summer long. If you cannot attend one of the Backlot Summer Nights — or even if you can — consider one of these projects. The organization includes opportunities for all ages, interests, and talents. The list is being updated weekly throughout the summer.
From Big Sunday:
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 22 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, in 10 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, and other essentials. Big Sunday has completed over 30,000 volunteer projects worth millions of dollars in donated goods and services. Recognized nationally, Big Sunday, which organizes over 2,000 ways to get involved every year, is one of the USA’s premiere resources for helping year-round. Big Sunday functions as an efficient and impactful clearing-house of volunteerism and community engagement, organizing, facilitating and hosting numerous programs and a range of unique ways for people of every age, background and means to help, volunteer and/or give, making it easy for tens of thousands of diverse people to participate in good works 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. The organization is driven by the belief that absolutely everyone has some way that they can help someone else. Big Sunday events and programs have become more popular than ever, as people search for a way to focus on what we share in common and to celebrate Big Sunday’s belief that we are all in it together. 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.”
To learn more about the upcoming Backlot Summer Nights, find more information here. To access Big Sunday’s Summer list, visit this website.
