Handle With Care West Hollywood turned GYM Bar WeHo into an assembly line of care and compassion Saturday morning. Volunteers packed care kits with food, socks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, band-aids, and other essentials. The care packages were heading to Saban Community Clinic in support of homeless individuals and families. 
Handle With Care founder and president, Kellan Martz said the contents of the kits aren’t random. Once a year, Handle With Care takes them out to the homeless community for a review. The idea is to ask the people who know best what it is they need, what they would appreciate most. Good, bad, what’s missing, the community grades it. That’s how the care kits became what they are now.
Martz, a West Hollywood resident and attorney at Best Best & Krieger LLP, previously served the City as a rent stabilization commissioner. He founded Handle With Care in January 2018 with three friends over Sunday brunch, an idea that started as a conversation about giving back and turned into a nonprofit that now serves more than 1,500 people a year.
Vice Mayor Danny Hang was there Saturday, working alongside volunteers filling care packages and showing support.Bombas Socks donated socks for Saturday’s kits. The company donates a pair to someone experiencing homelessness for every pair it sells, and it’s been a recurring Handle With Care partner.
The event had a natural home. GYM Bar WeHo is owned by Erik Braverman, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Community Relations and Broadcasting for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and his husband Jonathan Cottrell. Both are West Hollywood residents and have hosted Handle With Care events before.
Co-founder Tyler Gutowsky, who’s been with the organization since day one, was also on hand.
Handle With Care takes supply donations and cash year-round. More information is at handlewithcareus.org.
