Mlk Day Volunteer Festival by LA Works
Dr. Martin Luther King during his speech at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 1964. Photocred: www.laworks.com/mlkinfo
When Joy Complicated the Idea of Service
There was joy everywhere, which made it difficult to believe this was a volunteer event. People laughed while packing kits. Music drifted between stations. A grandmother danced with a stranger. Teams moved together in matching shirts, not rushing, not posturing. Just present.
Nothing about the day felt heavy. And that was the surprise.
Volunteerism is often framed as sacrifice. Something solemn, dutiful, even burdensome. What unfolded here quietly dismantled that assumption. Service didn’t sit apart from joy. It lived beside it.
That paradox demanded an explanation. It wasn’t accidental. It was designed.
An Invitation Designed, Not Demanded
One of the quiet joys of the day came folded into a small square: the Festival Passport. Part map, part invitation, part encouragement, the passport guided volunteers through service projects, nonprofit engagement, wellness activities, learning experiences, small business support, and moments of joy. Checkboxes replaced expectations. Tiered rewards replaced pressure.
There was no wrong way to participate.
The genius of the passport wasn’t gamification; it was permission. Permission to try. Permission to stop. Permission to do one thing or many. Participation without comparison. And in that design choice, something remarkable happened: people reached for one another.
Crossing Comfort Zones, Together
Midway through the day, a grandmother approached me with a gentle request. She needed one more square for her passport: the dance activity. Her granddaughter hovered behind her, arms crossed, cheeks tight with shyness.
“It’s okay to ask,” I told her. “People are here because they want to say yes.”
We danced. A box was checked. Something else was too. The passport hadn’t forced connection. It had made it possible.
Across the festival grounds, similar moments unfolded: strangers becoming collaborators, invitations becoming shared laughter, courage practiced in small, human ways. Community wasn’t announced. It was rehearsed.
Remembering What Volunteering Gives Back
The nonprofit area offered another kind of awakening.
Behind the tables were volunteers who had stayed, some for years, speaking not with exhaustion, but with delight. Their enthusiasm wasn’t loud. It was settled. They talked about volunteering the way people talk about friendships and chosen family.
What they described wasn’t sacrifice. It was meaning. Relationships. Purpose. Belonging.
I realized something quietly humbling: I had forgotten the benefits of volunteering.
Not because I had rejected them but because distance dulls memory. Somewhere between conversations, I found myself signing up for three organizations. Not out of obligation, but recognition. Joy has a way of reminding you where you belong.
When Institutions Show Up With People
Throughout the grounds, clusters of matching shirts moved together: companies, organizations, sororities. Some a dozen strong, others fifty.
These weren’t photo opportunities. These were declarations.
For many teams, MLK Day wasn’t a day off. It was a day in. Unpaid. Voluntary. Joyful.
A shared pause from productivity in favor of presence. Managers packing kits beside interns. Colleagues dancing without hierarchy. Team building rooted not in competition, but contribution.
This is culture you can’t manufacture in a conference room.
The day also drew civic leadership into the work itself. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joined volunteers on the ground, helping assemble care packages for unhoused Angelenos and spending time at service stations throughout the festival. In her remarks, the Mayor spoke to the enduring importance of volunteerism as a living expression of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to service, emphasizing that meaningful change is built through collective, sustained action.
Praising the volunteers who had already spent hours working side by side, she noted measurable progress alongside ongoing urgency: “I’m happy to report that the homeless count has decreased for Los Angeles in the last two years,” she said, “but there is much, much work to be done.” Her presence reinforced the day’s central message: that leadership, like service, is most powerful when practiced shoulder to shoulder.
The Ones Who Made It Possible
Behind every smiling volunteer stood someone who had been there before sunrise, stocking supplies, learning activities, welcoming each arrival with genuine warmth.
Support volunteers staffed every station, not just to instruct, but to encourage. To teach with patience. To model gladness. To thank people for showing up.
And behind them all was LA Works. Not just as organizer, but as architect. Tables of support supplies. Snacks and treats. Thoughtful signage. Merchandise offered with hospitality. Systems that communicated value without needing to say it.
People feel valued not by statements, but by design. LA Works understood that.
A Legacy Practiced
By the end of the day, no two experiences were the same but they were all connected. Service lived next to joy. Learning lived next to play. Reflection lived next to movement.
Dr. King’s legacy was not honored in theory. It was operationalized in choices, in systems, in people willing to practice belonging together.
This wasn’t just a volunteer festival. It was a portrait of a city remembering itself.
And a reminder that community isn’t found. It’s built. One invitation at a time.
Teams Who Showed Up Together
Throughout the day, service was not only an individual act it was a collective one.
Companies arrived in groups, some a dozen strong, others fifty or more. Sororities and organizations moved through the festival as units, not for recognition, but for shared participation. Matching shirts made them visible, but it was their posture that stood out: colleagues working without hierarchy, members supporting one another, teams choosing presence over a day off.
For many, the MLK Day Volunteer Festival had become a ritual, a way to mark the holiday not with absence from work or school, but with contribution. What united these groups was not industry, affiliation, or brand, but a decision to show up together and give time freely.
The organizations below participated in that spirit.
Perkins&Will participated in the MLK Day Volunteer Festival with team members from its Los Angeles and San Diego studios, contributing their time alongside other volunteers throughout the day. As an interdisciplinary architecture and design firm, their participation reflected a broader commitment to using professional skills and hands-on service in support of community well-being. Through both pro bono design work and direct volunteer engagement, the firm approaches service as a way to address social inequities and strengthen human connection, whether through design or shared labor.
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® – Tau Beta Omega Chapter participated in the MLK Day Volunteer Festival as part of its annual We Are One MLK Day of Service, registering 55 chapter members and community participants to volunteer with LA Works. Working alongside community partners including LA Works and Big Sunday, members engaged in service activities honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy through collective action.
Chartered in 1991 and based in Marina del Rey, the Tau Beta Omega Chapter is part of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated®. The nation’s oldest Greek-letter organization established by African American college-educated women. The chapter’s participation reflected its longstanding commitment to service, sisterhood, and advancing the social, economic, and educational well-being of the communities it serves, in alignment with the sorority’s international motto, Service to All Mankind.
Nonprofit Voices From the Field
Throughout the festival grounds, nonprofit organizations shared more than information, they shared lived experience. Behind each table were volunteers and staff who spoke with ease about what sustained them: relationships built over time, a sense of purpose rooted in service, and the quiet joy of belonging to something larger than themselves.
The organizations noted here represent only a portion of the nonprofits present at the MLK Day Volunteer Festival. Each offered a different pathway into community engagement, reminding visitors that volunteering does not require perfection or heroics only willingness. Together, they helped transform curiosity into connection, and participation into ongoing commitment.
HI USA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering cross-cultural understanding and human connection through travel and community engagement. Grounded in the belief that meaningful exchange builds empathy, the organization creates opportunities for volunteers to help people from around the world experience Los Angeles through shared presence and local knowledge.
At the MLK Day Volunteer Festival, representatives from HI USA spoke with visitors about service pathways centered on relationship-building, from hosting walking tours and community gatherings to creating welcoming spaces that help people connect across cultures. Their presence reflected an approach to volunteering rooted not in scale, but in openness, exchange, and the belief that understanding begins when people meet one another where they are.
The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, coordinated by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), is an annual, region-wide effort that mobilizes volunteers to collect critical data on homelessness across Los Angeles County. Conducted over several nights in January, the count plays a foundational role in shaping policy, funding decisions, and long-term strategies to address homelessness throughout the region.
At the MLK Day Volunteer Festival, staff invited visitors to participate in the upcoming January 21–24 count with an unexpected gesture of levity: anyone who signed up was offered an “okay” hand-drawn portrait.
The playful exchange lowered the barrier to engagement, turning a serious civic responsibility into a moment of connection. Volunteers left not only registered, but smiling, carrying a reminder that meaningful participation can be both purposeful and human.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles is one of Southern California’s largest youth mentoring organizations, creating one-to-one mentoring relationships that support and empower young people across the region. Each year, the organization serves nearly 1,500 children and youth through multiple mentoring programs that connect adults with young people for ongoing personal and academic support, community engagement, and pathway building.
At the MLK Day Volunteer Festival, volunteer Lori Sanchez from BBBSLA shared that she has served as a mentor for more than a decade, first with a mentee who is now 26 and described enduring fulfillment from the long-term connection and growth she has witnessed in the mentoring relationship.
About MLK Day Volunteer Festival
The MLK Day Volunteer Festival is an annual day of service that brings together individuals, families, nonprofits, community organizations, and employer teams from across Los Angeles to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through action. Organized by LA Works, the festival transforms Martin Luther King Jr. Day into a citywide opportunity for civic engagement, reflection, and community building.
Hosted at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the festival features a wide range of volunteer service projects, nonprofit engagement opportunities, family-friendly activities, and spaces for learning and connection. Designed to be accessible to people of all ages and experience levels, the event emphasizes participation over perfection and invites volunteers to engage in service that strengthens neighborhoods while fostering belonging, purpose, and shared responsibility.
Through intentional design and large-scale collaboration, the MLK Day Volunteer Festival reflects Dr. King’s vision of the Beloved Community, one built not only through ideals, but through collective, practiced care.
About LA Works
Today, LA Works designs and mobilizes volunteer experiences that strengthen nonprofits and neighborhoods—making service accessible for individuals, families, older adults, and corporate teams while addressing interconnected issue areas such as climate action, housing insecurity, economic opportunity, education equity, disaster preparedness, and food insecurity. Their mission is centered on three commitments: increasing volunteer participation, building nonprofit capacity through volunteer power and resources, and educating Angelenos to engage the broader social issues impacting Los Angeles.
LA Works is Los Angeles County’s volunteer action center, an organizing force that turns civic goodwill into coordinated, hands-on service across the region. Founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1991, LA Works was born from a belief that when people work side-by-side on local needs, they don’t just complete projects. They begin to close the racial and economic divides that shape city life.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass with LA Tribune Community Engagement Editor Ava Manuel
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