Earth Day last week already???

Wow. Almost a whole week gone since Earth Day. Time really flies when you're... working too much? :-) I'm sure you all can relate. Last week I had the opportunity to volunteer my morning and participate in LA Works Earth Day Park clean up event in Elysian Park by Dodger Stadium. I'm sure most of you reading this are aware of the financial difficulties our city is having with the budget. Parks and Recreation have taken a hit. There aren't enough workers to cover all the parks in the city anymore. Overgrowing brush, weeds, graffiti and garbage will unfortunately begin to overrun these areas without people like us pitching in to keep 'em clean. Now you say "I just don't have the time" or "I don't go to parks" and my personal favorite "That's why I pay that stupid city tax I've never had to pay anywhere else I've ever lived!". I get it. Here's an idea. Go to your employer and see if they'll sponsor a volunteer morning. See if you can get 'em to give you a morning off for you and some co-workers to come help out at an LA Works event. Good publicity for them and you get the morning off. I meet two groups just like this on last Thursday, one from Bloomberg and the other from AMC Theaters. Enough hot air from me. I'm preaching to the choir if you're reading this site. I volunteer for totally selfish reasons. I feel good when I do, I meet new people and I get to say I'm part of the solution (which give me the right to complain when there's a problem :-) Spread the word to your friends and family. Be the solution.

A Toast to a Great Match! - taste delicious Spanish wines and dishes while helping out a good cause

On Wednesday, May 12 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at SLS Hotel, Wines from Spain, will partner with L.A. Works for its 17^th annual Great Match: Vivacious Varietals.Tantalizing Tastes  tasting tour.  Eight of the Los Angeles-area’s most notable restaurants, including THE BAZAAR at SLS by José Andrés, will prepare signature tapas designed to show the versatility of Spanish wines with many styles of cuisine. Guests will have the opportunity to taste more than 130 current release wines, highlighting Spain’s indigenous varietals.

And the sweetest part?  Ticket proceeds from the Great Match will benefit L.A. Works, Los Angeles' premier volunteer action center that empowers Angelenos to address pressing social issues through volunteerism and community collaborations.

Make Great Match a date night or a much deserved night out on the town with your friends or co-workers! To experience a sensory and delicious evening benefiting L.A. Works, visit www.greatmatch.org to purchase $45 tickets.

Volunteer Appreciation Picnic

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor touched...but felt in the heart."

--Helen Keller

On April 18th, L.A. Works brought together volunteer project leaders and dedicated volunteers for a picnic as a thank you during Volunteer Appreciation Week 2010. For national volunteer appreciation week, we would like to recognize all of our volunteers who have spent time mentoring, tutoring, and visiting with at-risk children, painting and revitalizing our schools and community centers, caring for animals, visiting with the elderly, planting, gardening, trail maintenance, increasing accessibility for individuals with disabilities, and so much more. Your heart, commitment, time, and efforts are truly priceless to Los Angeles.  For more pictures, check out the album on our Facebook Fan page!

BusinessWorks event with Everything Channel at Dayton Heights Elementary School

GetLA and VOTE for your favorite!

L.A. Works and Los Angeles Magazine have selected eight finalists from the many we received for the Get LA film competition. The videos are up on the LA Magazine website, click here to vote for your favorite short film to help one filmmaker win the Audience Selection award.

WE Connect -- volunteer to help over 10,000 Angelenos

L.A. Works will be recruiting, managing, and coordinating over 500 volunteers to serve more than 10,000 at-risk Angelinos at Maria Shriver's WE Connect Event on March 26-28.  The WE Connect event will connect families with the information and tools they need to take full advantage of valuable resources, empowering them to live their dreams.

In addition to L.A. Works, partners for the day include the United Way to provide free tax preparation, the Legal Aid Society of Orange County to provide foreclosure and loss mitigation counseling, the L.A. Regional Foodbank to distribute food, and the Employment Development Department with job search and resume assistance.  Click here if you are interested in becoming a volunteer for this event.

The WE Connect event has a special need for EMT-certified volunteers. If you are EMT-certified and want to get involved with this important event, please contact Gil Gonzales.

Civic Participation

By participating in the whole of community life, in both action and civic dialogue, volunteers have the power to magnify their local and global impact. L.A. Works encourages all of our volunteers to build upon their service experience through education, conversation, and advocacy. An L.A. Works volunteer created the following Social Issue Briefs as a resource to provide brief introductions to the issues, relevant federal, state, and local policy, suggestions on where to learn more on the issue, and bi-partisan civic engagement tools on how to share your voice to the cause. Please peruse these documents and visit this page again soon too see additional briefs, ideas, and initiatives as we work to grow this resource for you.

The briefs will be available on L.A. Works website shortly but for now can be viewed:

Environment
Education
Animals

More briefs to be posted soon... homelessness... aging/elderly...

And what would you like to see? Share your thoughts/comments here!

Let's Read, Westside - OLYMPICS session

At the first Let's Read, Westside session... We had 12 kids and about 16 volunteers, including Beth and me. The theme of the session was the Winter Olympics.  To start off the session I read aloud Curious George in the Snow to the kids.  From there the kids picked out a book and a volunteer to read with one-on-one.  After about 45 minutes, the kids returned to the room for snack (apple slices and cheese and crackers).  We then had the kids make gold medals by painting cardboard circles with yellow paint (pictured, above).  While those were drying the kids made Olympic torches out of paper and red/yellow/orange tissue paper and Olympic flags. Jared and Rashidi are pictured here (below) and there are more photos posted on our facebook page!

 

~ Aaron Perez, Co-Project Leader, Let's Read - Westside

Let's Read - Aaron Perez shares why he's involved and encourages you to join him!

Let's Read - Westside is a multi-week program designed to provide the youth of Nora Sterry Elementary School and the surrounding community with the tools to help them achieve their dreams. Working individually and as a group, volunteers work with youth to strengthen their reading and comprehension skills and to show them that reading can be fun.

I found Let's Read back in September 2008 as I was browsing through the L.A. Works' postings for a program that worked with children, specifically in education. After my first session, where I read and played board games with some really cool kids, I knew the program was perfect for me. After I heard that Mike and Beth, the former project leaders, would not be able to continue running this program full-time, I was eager to help out.

The most inspiring thing about the program is after you've worked with the same child for a few weeks and start to notice improvements. You'll realize he or she is a lot more confident sounding out big words and is enjoying reading a little bit more. Most of the parents of these kids don't have the English language skills to read with their kids, so the hour we spend reading with them is really invaluable.

If you're enthusiasm for kids is as great as your love of learning, then this program is for you. I know how busy we all are and taking a part of a Saturday morning may seem daunting. With that said, I promise if you can make it to one session you will be surprised how much of a positive impact you can make in a child's life with just two hours of your time!

~ Aaron Perez, Let's Read Westside Co-Project Leader

Click HERE to learn more about the WESTSIDE Let's Read project OR HERE to learn about the PUEBLO DEL RIO Let's Read project.

Announcing the Get L.A. Short Film Contest

As we work to fulfill our mission of increasing volunteerism in L.A., we understand that building better communities starts with learning what people care about in Los Angeles. And we believe that as people begin to connect more with the ideas/issues/places that make our city great, they will further embrace why L.A. Works organizes volunteer projects focused on positively impacting the community. So, we have partnered with L.A. Magazine to offer our volunteers and supporters an opportunity to share their videos about what is loved/hated/thought about L.A. We get your thoughts on what is important in our city and you get a chance to win an exclusive VIP meeting with Hollywood executives and more!! More information about L.A. Work's Get L.A. Short Film Contest available at www.lamag.com/citythink/getla.