The corporal works of mercy are not a metaphor. These are places in and around Los Angeles that will put you to work this month: a kitchen on Skid Row you can walk into on Saturday morning, shelters, a child who needs the same adult for a year, and the jails.
Feeding people
The Hospitality Kitchen, known to everyone as the Hippie Kitchen
Central Los Angeles Skid Row, on Sixth Street at Gladys, six blocks east of Little Tokyo. The Metro A and E lines stop ten minutes' walk away at Little Tokyo and Pico, and there is street parking at that hour.
Beans, salad and bread served in a garden on Sixth Street, three mornings a week, by the Catholic Worker community that has been doing it since 1970. No form, no interview, no badge. You show up, you are handed a job, and you eat with everyone at the end.
When Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. Arrive between 7:00 and 7:30 AM and stay until at least 12:30 PM.
Central Los Angeles Lincoln Heights, off North Avenue 21 near the 5. About fifteen minutes from downtown by car, and the thrift stores and conferences are spread across the whole county from there.
Four different things under one name. A Conference of Charity is the parish end of it, two people going out to visit a family that has asked for help. There is also the shelter, the thrift stores that pay for the rest of it, and the summer camp.
Before your first day Each of the four has its own page and its own way in.
Catholic Charities · Across Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties
All three counties Everywhere. Centres and pantries across Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, so the question is which one is nearest you rather than whether there is one.
The biggest single answer to this question, and the one with a centre near almost everybody. In their own words: deliver food to the homebound elderly, tutor children, help at our food pantries, or answer phones.
Before your first day An application, and fingerprinting for anything that puts you with children or vulnerable adults.
South Bay and Long Beach Lennox, on Inglewood Avenue right under the flight path by LAX, five minutes from the 405 and the 105. This is the South Bay answer to the question, and the nearest thing on this page to Westchester, Inglewood and the beach cities.
A Catholic Charities centre that has served the families around the airport since 1987: a food pantry, sack lunches and hygiene kits for people on the street, showers and haircuts, help with a utility bill, a medical clinic, English and citizenship classes, and immigration work.
When Sack lunches go out Monday to Friday, 9 AM to noon. The pantry runs by appointment Tuesday to Friday, 1 to 4 PM.
Before your first day Catholic Charities takes the volunteers for this one, so start with their form.
Two things worth knowing before you write to anyone.
Anywhere that puts you near children or vulnerable adults will want fingerprints, sometimes a TB test, and a safeguarding class. It is not suspicion of you, it is the price of having been wrong about it before, and every place on this page walks you through it.
Turning up once is worth something. Turning up on the same morning for a year is worth far more, which is why several of these ask for a year before they will match you with anybody.
Most of this work sits in and around downtown, which is where the need is, so the honest answer for the Valley is Catholic Charities and your own parish for now. If you know a place we are missing, especially in the Valley, in Ventura or in Santa Barbara, tell us and we will read their site and add it. Every entry here was read on the organisation’s own website on the day it says, and nothing was taken from a directory. If you run one of these and we have it wrong, or you want to be on this page, tell us.