Connecting Community Through Color

Social & emotional support

Cultural events

Public/open streets gatherings

Rates of volunteerism

Total number of local social media friends and connections Angelenos have

Central LA

East LA

San Gabriel Valley

San Fernando Valley

South LA

Westside

South Bay

Gateway Cities

Antelope Valley

County of Los Angeles

City of Los Angeles

LAUSD

We are open to working anywhere in greater L.A.

Big Sunday has been bringing people of all ages and backgrounds together for nearly twenty years. Our mission statement embodies the spirit of 'connecting.' As our mission statement says, 'We connect people through helping.'

We started as a single day of service. Today, we offer more than 2000 ways every year for absolutely anyone to pitch in, help out, and give back. Even better, we bring all kinds of diverse people together in the name of helping.

At Big Sunday, we believe that absolutely everyone has some way that they can help somebody else. We do not see the world as haves-and-have-nots but rather as haves-and-have-mores. Our participants include everyone from homeless people to movie stars and everyoje is treated and valued the same. In fact, at many of our events, it is difficult to tell to who is helping and who is being helped. In fact, we are proud of the fact that we often blue those lines.

Over the years, we have worked with hundreds of schools, from preschools through grad schools. We've worked with public, private, religious and secular schools. We've also worked with schools that serve all kinds of communities. One thing we've discovered is that schools don't only serve children, but they involve faculty, parents, neighbors, and other stakeholders, too. Not only that, schools increasingly meet other needs as well, whether they operate as camps in the summer, polling places, sites for community meetings, a site for a show or concert, the home of a sustainable garden, the site of an exciting game, or drop-in sites for locals.

Of course, many schools that once were a site to simply teach children now also serve the function of de facto social service agencies, providing everything from food to clothing not only for their students, but the kids' families as well.

We think every school should be welcoming to all. And without question a pretty and cheerful environment goes a long way to making a place ingratiating. We've discovered that too many schools can be run-down or drab -- with others can be new but too sterile. We think that colorful murals can provide a school not only with warmth, but a great sense of place. This adds to the community's sense of belonging (always important at Big Sunday) and pride. (Come to think of it, also very important to us!).

More importantly, when a community comes together in the name of creating that mural it has resonance both in the moment and for years to come. We will be teaming with professional artists who will work with schools communities to not only paint professional-level murals, but to work with the community to discern their interests and passions. Better still, the artists will be trained in color therapy and teach the participants about the value of color in creating environments that are not just pretty and festive, but also encouraging feelings of well-being, security and confidence.

Creating these murals will connect people in a classic Big Sunday way: impactful and fun.

One of our goals is to introduce children to the impact that color and imagery has on their environment and their life. Also, how important murals and civic engagement are in our society. We see our measure of success gauged daily by the pride the students, faculty and community develop after their school is transformed through color. When cool and warm colors replace drab tones and imagery that has a social or environmental message becomes a part of the students surroundings they become engaged and excited to be in a place where creativity is encouraged. We see this as an integral part of their education.

Success will also be measured by: 1) increase in the arts at school, 2) other civic engagement projects at the school, whether art-related or other, 3) increased engagement among parents, 4) increased engagement among faculty, 4) increased engagement among neighbors, 5) increase in attendance of children, 6) harder to measure, but still important, anecdotal evidence that children are happy to be at school.

Money

Volunteers

Publicity/awareness

Infrastructure (building/space/vehicles etc.)

Education/training

Community outreach

Network/relationship support

Personal outreach in local communities