You’re gay, and you want to do some good? Gay for Good, the LGBT volunteer organization, today announced projects in Los Angeles through the end of this year that will let you do that.
G4G invites LGBT people and their friends to volunteer their time on projects that aren’t explicitly focused on the LGBT community. A recent example in Los Angeles took place on Aug. 12 at the Islamic Center of Southern California. There several dozen LGBT people assembled and distributed food to poor people, most of whom were Muslim. The idea of G4G is to connect LGBT people with those who don’t know the community and may have a misunderstanding of it.
Upcoming projects are:
SEPTEMBER: This project (Sept. 23) is with Operation Gratitude, which sends care packages to U.S. military personal stationed abroad. More information on Operation Gratitude is available online. G4G volunteers will show up at Operation Gratitude’s location at 21100 Lassen St. in Chatsworth at 9 a.m. There they will work together to assemble care packages until noon. Those who want to attend can register online.
OCTOBER: This October marks Gay for Good’s eighth year working with the LA Parks & Recreation Department and Friends of Runyon Canyon to prepare the park for the rainy season. It will involve trail maintenance, park restoration and sand bagging erosion prone areas. The date is to be announced.
NOVEMBER: On Nov. 11, Gay for Good will be working with the Audubon Society to build trails and restore park areas at Debs Park, which is in the hills of northeast Los Angeles. More information can be found at www.debspark.audubon.org/visit. And, on Thanksgiving Day, volunteers will join hundreds of other volunteers across Los Angeles with Gobble, Gobble Give to feed homeless a Thanksgiving meal.
DECEMBER: Every year, since Gay for Good’s founding in 2008, members have volunteered with the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank in DTLA. This is always the largest service project with over 150 volunteers from Gay for Good participating. The volunteers sort and assemble food kits for other regional shelters.
G4G was founded in 2010 in Los Angeles by Frank Roller, Steve Gratwick and Tony Biel. A profile of the group in the Advocate says Frank Roller and Steve Gratwick were on a hike when they started “talking about their desire to do more volunteer work. Inspired by the triple whammy of then-president elect Obama’s volunteer initiative, the Harvey Milk biopic ‘Milk’ and the passage of California’s antigay Proposition 8, they determined to figure out how to take LGBT people beyond the ‘gay community’ and into the larger world to actively do some good.”
Today G4G has chapters in 10 cities across the United States where parks have been cleaned, homeless have been fed, troops have been cared for and schools restored.
