The First Twenty Years: 1999-2019
1999 – Winter Outreach is born – Tom and three volunteers serve 40 lives over a week in West LA
2001 – The Giving Spirit is granted 501c3 (nonprofit) status
2002-2016 – The organization expands its Outreach and educational efforts surpassing 55,000 lives served and 15,000 volunteers engaged
2017 – We expand to introduce educational outreach and empathy building, encompassed by our “First Mile of Learning.” We launch our Companion Animals Program, based on studies that show that companion animals play an important role in their homeless caretakers’ survival.
2015-2017 – Begin transition from all-volunteer leadership to hiring first staff members
2019 – We surpass 70,000 lives served and the 20,000 volunteer mark
2020 – 2025
2020 – Declared First Responders by the City of Los Angeles we re-engineer our model to increase impact despite lack of volunteers and no direct outreach
COVID-19 didn’t stop us from making history…
- 10,000 Lives Project – Served 10,000 unhoused lives with robust Health+Safety kits full of rare PPE, hygiene, personal care items – and 10,000 handmade Friendship Cards sent from all over the state and country – through LAHSA, the YMCA and the United Way. Serve all 4500+ inhabitants of City’s Project Room Key program. Personally recognized by Mayor Garcetti and Councilman Bonin.
- Launched our LAUSD Homeless Student Program in partnership with the Home Education Office of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Served 3000 unhoused K-12 student with Essential Learning Kits – curated backpacks filled with essential age-appropriate, school supplies, PPE and hygiene and personal care items for remote students and their families. Learn More <<Link>>
- Launch our Women+Girls Initiative to serve the unique needs and provide understanding of LA’s growing female homeless population. We directly serve 3000 unhoused women and girls with Health+Personal Care Kits. Learn More <<Link>>
- In total – during the height of the pandemic The Giving Spirit expanded its operation to serve 20,000+ unhoused human and animal lives – with handfuls of volunteers and a CDC-compliant protocol
2021 – The first Giving Spirit Youth Council cohort is Chartered. Five accomplished youth leaders committed to service, invested in the alleviation of poverty in Los Angeles and devoted to the mission of The Giving Spirit.
2022 – Began research and development of proprietary digital curriculum on poverty and homelessness
2022 – A Professor and a Dean from Harvard Business School offer to advise and counsel on the development of an innovative learning model. “if (The Giving Spirit) gets (the learning tools) right, you will change the way people learn,” Professor Monique Burns-Thompson.
2022- Restarted Public Outreach – volunteerism has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. Focusing on one public event each December and multiple curated private events throughout the year.
2024 – Launching of first course “Youth Homelessness” in our digital curriculum
- Launch proprietary digital learning destination site – besocialchange.us
- Pope Francis’s secular organization, Scholas Occurrentes is our first partner on the platform
2025 – Historic fires placed new pressures on our community
- Coordinated efforts with Red Cross volunteers to organize resources for the unhoused
- Worked with YPO Santa Monica to supply all housed veterans on the Wilshire Veterans Administration campus with emergency evacuation backpacks
.