On September 4, we celebrated TBA’s 29th anniversary. This year, we are grateful for so much: for our staff, collaborators, resources, and homeowners; for our privilege to create meaningful work; and for our health, homes, and planet. While we are blessed with this good fortune, we know so many are experiencing the effects of Los Angeles’s homelessness and housing crisis.
To mark our 29 years, we partnered with My Friend’s Place (MFP) – a Hollywood-based resource center that assists and inspires homeless youth to build self-sufficient lives by providing day shelter, meals, showers, counseling and crisis intervention, life skills and employment programming, creative workshops and more. See our previous work with this important organization in 2021, 2019, and 2018.
In just this past year*, MFP has:
- Supported 10,264 visits by young people
- Served 20,528 meals
- Assisted 194 young people in securing emergency shelters
- Provided 3,500 showers
- Engaged 317 young people in creative workshops and 181 in employment service
*Data from MFP’s 2023 Impact Report, July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023
Now more than ever, organizations like MFP need our help. Over 4,000 young people experience homelessness each night in Los Angeles, making our city home to one of the largest populations of homeless youth in the country [Source: 2019 Homeless Youth Count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority].
On Friday, September 8, our team provided and shared lunch with the 75+ youth, followed by several creative activities led by TBA and MFP staff.
Face-to-face interactions help us to understand each other in the midst of an ever-increasing digital world. We connected with the youth who passed through MFP’s doors that day – and learned about what uplifts their spirit through chalk art; their dreams through vision boards; how they problem-solve through a gumdrop “tower challenge”; and their relationships through making friendship bracelets. While we hope we made even the smallest of impacts on their lives that one day, there is so much more that can be done.
Our team is committed to supporting the effort to bring an end to youth homelessness – and ask if you might consider how you can as well. There are so many different ways to help:
- Volunteer for a day or even just a few hours
- Donate:
- MFP is always in need of clothing, snacks, and educational/recreational supplies
- Gift cards
- Sponsor a lunch
- Get involved:
- The Emerging Leaders Council is looking for members
- Contact David Stone, TBA’s Director of Operations, if interested in joining the Board of Directors
- Visit myfriendsplace.org/get-involved to learn more.
Clockwise, from top left: Job Captains Ben Jensen and Isela Lopez serving tacos for lunch; Senior Project Manager Katie Peterson-Hesketh, Principal Tim Barber, and Senior Project Manager Jim Coyle assisting with the chalk art activity. The prompt? “What uplifts you?”; TBA staff organizing the friendship bracelet activity station; Design Associate Tony Malyan helping with the gumdrop tower challenge.