Serve as a Volunteer Crisis Listener with Community Helpline, Inc.
Become a Volunteer Crisis Listener to provide a confidential, safe, and empathetic space for individuals facing hardships such as addiction, abusive relationships, depression, or grief. Volunteers answer the regional crisis hotline to offer non-judgmental emotional support and resource referrals. Vetted participants must complete a mandatory two-phase training program, which begins with up to 25 hours of intensive, in-person active listening and communications classes held in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. Following classroom completion, volunteers undergo individual mentorship and shadowing in the office for 5 to 9 shifts alongside a seasoned listener before handling calls independently. A one-year commitment of one 3-hour shift per week (or two shifts per week for 6 months) is required. Must be 16 years or older, clear a Live Scan fingerprint background check, and submit an application essay.
Join the Emergency Response Volunteer Roster with CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort)
Sign up for the emergency response roster to form the backbone of their domestic disaster operations. Vetted participants enable the organization to significantly expand its impact when a crisis occurs. Roster members play a vital role in all facets of US-based operations, from on-the-ground assistance to logistical and administrative support. A willingness to help, regardless of skill level, is invaluable to their mission's success during regional crises, hurricanes, wildfires, or other sudden humanitarian emergencies over the summer. Must be 18 years or older to be deployed to active disaster zones.
Share Skills and Passion with Covenant House California
Share your talents and passions to provide opportunities for healing and growth to young people overcoming homelessness and trafficking. Individuals, corporate teams, and civic groups can design custom volunteer experiences based on what they love to do. Engagement ideas include cooking or hosting a group meal, leading wellness workshops (yoga, meditation, or gardening), providing educational tutoring, or hosting recreational events like birthday celebrations, game nights, movie nights, or beach days. Volunteers can also contribute via professional skills like providing haircuts or organizing community donation drives. Requires completing a volunteer application, orientation, and a background check.
Serve as a Volunteer Crisis Listener with Community Helpline, Inc.
Become a Volunteer Crisis Listener to provide a confidential, safe, and empathetic space for individuals facing hardships such as addiction, abusive relationships, depression, or grief. Volunteers answer the regional crisis hotline to offer non-judgmental emotional support and resource referrals. Vetted participants must complete a mandatory two-phase training program, which begins with up to 25 hours of intensive, in-person active listening and communications classes held in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. Following classroom completion, volunteers undergo individual mentorship and shadowing in the office for 5 to 9 shifts alongside a seasoned listener before handling calls independently. A one-year commitment of one 3-hour shift per week (or two shifts per week for 6 months) is required. Must be 16 years or older, clear a Live Scan fingerprint background check, and submit an application essay.
Join the Emergency Response Volunteer Roster with CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort)
Sign up for the emergency response roster to form the backbone of their domestic disaster operations. Vetted participants enable the organization to significantly expand its impact when a crisis occurs. Roster members play a vital role in all facets of US-based operations, from on-the-ground assistance to logistical and administrative support. A willingness to help, regardless of skill level, is invaluable to their mission's success during regional crises, hurricanes, wildfires, or other sudden humanitarian emergencies over the summer. Must be 18 years or older to be deployed to active disaster zones.
Share Skills and Passion with Covenant House California
Share your talents and passions to provide opportunities for healing and growth to young people overcoming homelessness and trafficking. Individuals, corporate teams, and civic groups can design custom volunteer experiences based on what they love to do. Engagement ideas include cooking or hosting a group meal, leading wellness workshops (yoga, meditation, or gardening), providing educational tutoring, or hosting recreational events like birthday celebrations, game nights, movie nights, or beach days. Volunteers can also contribute via professional skills like providing haircuts or organizing community donation drives. Requires completing a volunteer application, orientation, and a background check.
Assemble Academic Supply Kits with Crime Survivors Resource Center
Support the summer Backpack Program to help children who have been victimized by crime. Volunteers assist with collecting, sorting, and packing essential school supplies—including pencils, pens, notebooks, rulers, and calculators—into durable, washable, multi-compartment backpacks. This program ensures impacted children receive valuable and necessary tools for their primary education ahead of the new school year.
Provide Office Support and Intake Assistance with Crime Survivors Resource Center
Lend your administrative skills to keep the resource center operating smoothly. Office and intake volunteers assist staff with a wide variety of ongoing tasks, including answering public info lines, processing incoming community resource inquiries, data entry, sorting physical donation bins, and preparing critical resource guides for public distribution. Application review and full background check required for office access.
Support Legal Advocacy and Case Management with Crime Survivors Resource Center
Assist with essential advocacy and case tracking services for crime victims and survivors. Vetted volunteers and legal interns work alongside staff advocates to guide clients through the challenges of the judicial system, track case developments, assist survivors with preparing documentation for court or parole hearings, and coordinate travel or legal assistance programs. Requires specialized legal, social work, or advocacy training and a clean background check.
Coordinate Professional Roundtable Workshops with Crime Survivors Resource Center
Assist with the logistics, setup, and execution of the Service Providers Roundtables hosted throughout Southern California. Volunteers support these professional training sessions and workshops by managing check-in desks, distributing informational packets, and arranging meeting rooms. These roundtables bring together psychologists, lawyers, and victim advocates to focus on the newest and most innovative efforts to assist survivors.
Provide Individual Program and Day Center Support with Downtown Women’s Center
Engage directly with women and gender-diverse individuals navigating homelessness. Ongoing individual positions span several crucial departments: Kitchen Assistants chop, measure, and serve three daily meals; Day Center Helpers distribute toiletries, manage administrative desks, and welcome incoming participants; Residence Hosts monitor supportive housing lobbies and sign for packages; and Learning Center Tutors offer computer literacy guidance and employment readiness coaching. To access these on-site shifts, individuals must first complete an intake profile and attend a virtual volunteer training session covering trauma-informed care and de-escalation strategies. Must be 18 years or older and attend a mandatory virtual orientation training.
Join the Cooking Club and On-Site Service Groups with Downtown Women’s Center
Form a group with friends, family, or corporate colleagues to complete vital hands-on team projects. On-site groups can sponsor and join the Cooking Club to communally prepare, cook, and serve a fresh, home-style lunch for 150 women inside the Day Center kitchen, or register for a morning Snack Pack Workshop to assemble nutritious grab-and-go meal bags. Alternatively, community groups can work together off-site to source, compile, and deliver bulk supply packages, which include Snack Packs, travel-sized Toiletry Kits for the daily shower program, and Clean Home Kits packed in durable tote bags for residents transitioning into permanent housing. All group members must be 18 years or older and complete a liability waiver.
Transport and Supply Fresh Produce as a Farmers Market Volunteer with Garden School Foundation
Help transport fresh produce to support free on-campus farmers markets that share an average of 9,000 lbs of food with over 225 school families each month. Volunteers meet on Thursday mornings at the Food Forward Produce Pit Stop in Bell, load their personal vehicles with boxes of fruits and vegetables, and drive them to designated school market sites (24th Street or 99th Street Elementary) to distribute the items directly to families. Requires a valid driver's license and a vehicle large enough to transport cargo boxes.
Maintain Urban School Plots as an Open Garden Volunteer with Garden School Foundation
Assist with essential garden maintenance tasks during regular weekday school hours. Weekday volunteers work independently with light staff guidance to keep urban agricultural sites thriving. Dedicated tasks include weeding, watering, mulching, composting, and maintaining the overall safety and beauty of the natural learning space. This position is ideal for individuals who feel highly comfortable working outdoors or have prior gardening experience. Requires prior garden experience or comfort working independently outdoors.
Lead Educational Cooking Demos and Workshops with Garden School Foundation
Share culinary, nutritional, or environmental expertise by leading community workshops. Volunteers with specialized experience design and facilitate interactive cooking demonstrations or garden workshops during scheduled Community Garden Days. These presentations help strengthen local connections between food justice, environmental stewardship, and community health.
Support Urban Community Development and Environmental Equity with Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC)
Join residents, artists, entrepreneurs, and community leaders for an open conversation about a proposed mixed-use residential and commercial development designed to support cultural preservation and economic opportunity. The project includes affordable live/work spaces, small business opportunities, and rent-to-own housing pathways for creatives, innovators, and individuals transitioning out of homelessness. Your voice is essential in helping create a development that reflects the history, identity, and future of the community. Open to community individuals and youth groups; minors require parental permission.
From Housing to Hope: Join the Compassion Club at American Family Housing and Change Lives
At American Family Housing, volunteers are at the heart of everything the organization does. The team is incredibly grateful for the time, energy, and compassion volunteers bring to the mission. Believing that everyone deserves an affordable, accessible home in a safe, stable community where they can thrive, American Family Housing relies on this vital involvement to provide high-quality resident services. These activities include holiday events, budgeting classes, dog grooming, walking groups, tutoring, music lessons, and group activities like neighborhood street clean-ups. Every year, incredible volunteers help create lasting change in the lives of thousands of individuals and families across Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
Give Locally, Change Lives: Donate to American Family Housing
Donations to American Family Housing directly fund the foundation for safe, affordable, and stable communities. Financial contributions allow the organization to go beyond housing, providing residents with vital life-enriching programs like budgeting classes, tutoring, and community events. A gift to American Family Housing is an investment in transforming lives and breaking the cycle of homelessness for thousands of families across Los Angeles and Orange Counties.
Support Families in Crisis: Deploy with the American Red Cross
When hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters strike, communities are often left with critical needs for basics like food and shelter. You can be one of the first volunteers on the ground to help address these needs – as you provide comfort and help those impacted begin to recover. If you are over 18 years of age and able to travel outside of your local area for two weeks, your compassion can bring hope and relief to those facing their darkest moments. Those that are best suited for this assignment are flexible and able to work in ever changing environments.
Strategic Storytellers Wanted: Volunteer for Media Relations at American Red Cross
This position supports the Regional Communications department. Red Cross Media Relations volunteers are part of a professional volunteer team that develops and delivers the Red Cross story behind-the-scenes, on-camera, in-person and online through media channels, websites, social media feeds and other content platforms.
Featured Projects
Join Big Sunday for Relaxation and Community Care at Wellness Mondays
Big Sunday,
dom@bigsunday.org,
(323) 549-9944
If you're feeling like you could use a holiday – or a way to relax and recharge while meeting great, helpful folks -you're going to love Big Sunday's Wellness Mondays. Every Monday at 10 AM, we'll be hosting a different, fantastic sound bath here at Big Sunday HQ. Every Sound Bath is wonderful, designed to help you relax, recharge, and reconnect with yourself and others. They're all incredibly relaxing, totally free, and everyone is invited! We want everyone to be as comfortable as possible and suggest that you bring your own mat, cushion, pillow, blanket, eye cover, etc. – whatever you need to feel relaxed and cozy!
Create Mosaic Suns With Big Sunday at our Art Tuesdays
Big Sunday,
josh@bigsunday.org,
(323) 549-9944
Every Tuesday, volunteers join us at Big Sunday HQ to decorate mosaics in the shape of a sun. These beautiful works of art are then donated to schools, shelters, food banks – anywhere in need of a little more sunshine and warmth! This wonderful project is the brainchild of our old friend Cathy Weiss and led by Cathy and our own Big Sunday staff. You don’t need to be a brilliant artist to participate – just friendly and sincere. Just about everybody who’s worked on one tells us the mosaic suns are their favorite Big Sunday project!.
Join Big Sunday for our Accessible Wednesday at 10am Event
Big Sunday,
passion@bigsunday.org,
(323) 549-9944
A spin-off of our flagship weekly event TM@10, Accessible Wednesdays @ 10 (AW@10 for short) hosts volunteers every Wednesday to work on hands-on projects to help local nonprofits. The difference? The projects we do on Wednesdays are specially geared to be accessible to folks of all ability levels! Our guests of honor at each AW@10 are groups of volunteers with intellectual and developmental disabilities from some of our partner organizations like AbilityFirst, ETTA, PassAbility, Partners For Potential, and Arroyo Development Services. At Big Sunday, we firmly believe that everyone has something to give, and that everyone has fun helping others! Anyone and everyone is invited to join us for AW@10, whether it’s with a group or as an individual who wants to help out and hang out with some of the best volunteers in the business. From assembling goodie bags for unhoused people and their dogs to decorating pumpkins for underserved kids at Halloween, there’s always something fun going on at AW@10. This week we will be sorting cloths for donations.
Join Big Sunday for our Thursday Morning at 10am Events
Big Sunday,
nicolo@bigsunday.org,
(323) 549-9944
TM@10 (Thursday Morning @ 10) is not only one of our favorite programs, but it’s one of our most popular, too! Every Thursday morning from 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, volunteers gather at Big Sunday HQ to work on hands-on projects that help local nonprofits. We’ve assembled birthday gifts for folks in shelters, written letters to soldiers stationed overseas, packed backpacks for ex-gang members starting college, made fleece blankets for shelter kittens, and done about a thousand other fun and meaningful things. In classic Big Sunday fashion, it’s a great way for people to meet new people, work together, and enjoy some laughs while helping someone else. It’s no wonder we have so many regulars who come every single week! We’re regularly joined by groups like AbilityFirst, Partners For Potential, and of course the famous TM Ladies! Projects we’ve worked on have benefited organizations like Covenant House, Carlos Santa Ana Academy, PATH, Exceptional Children’s Foundation, Angelus Plaza, and countless others.
Join Big Sunday for our Food Pantry and Food Fridays @ 10am
Big Sunday,
madison@bigsunday.org,
(323) 549-9944
Big Sunday has given away mountains of food over many years, but now we’re going to make it a weekly event. Our Food Pantry will be open year ‘round and will contain both perishable and non-perishable food. We’re also introducing Food Fridays. Every Friday morning we’ll be open from 10-11:30 to sort and pack food. We’ll also distribute to nonprofits and schools from all over town who will distribute the food to hungry and grateful people in their communities. All ages are welcome. Groups, too! We need volunteers, collectors, donors and sponsors.