San Fernando Valley comes together

JENNIFER TANZIL Reporter

Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel was joined by Mayor Karen Bass, local representatives and volunteers of various ages at the second annual Day of Service on Sunday to work on projects to help the San Fernando Valley.

Volunteers from different parts of the Valley met at Pierce College before reporting to their designated stations, either on campus or off-site.

Gabriel started the event in 2022 to get people working together again after the pandemic. He expected around 150 volunteers. He got 700.

“Today is really about bringing people together, about celebrating the beautiful diversity of our community and about making a difference,” Gabriel said. This year, the number of volunteers who signed up went up to over 1,000.

Along with different organizations and led by elected leaders such as Senator Caroline Menjivar, volunteers spread across the Valley to clean nearby neighborhoods, pick up trash at the Sepulveda Basin and sort items at the SOVA food pantry.

On-campus projects at Pierce College included a blood drive, packing outreach kits and gardening.

Gabriel said change requires everyone in the community to come out and get together. The “amazing” turnout was exactly what Gabriel was hoping would come out of the event.

“There is so much negativity on social media,” Gabriel said.

“What I know from being out in the community is we actually live in an incredibly kind, generous and vibrant community.”

Gabriel thanked more than 40 different community partners at the event, including the West Valley Food Pantry, Moms Demand Action and Women’s

Association- Los Angeles.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a self-proclaimed “former Valley girl”, spoke about how proud she was to be at the event.

“One thing I always like to do is lift up the work that goes on in this city from all the community organizations, because if you think about the problems we have in the city, the only way to resolve them is for all of us to get involved,” Bass said. “That’s the way we built the Los Angeles that we all know we can have.”

Bass recently declared a state of emergency regarding the homeless crisis in the city, highlighting the need for community and lawmaker support in aiding with the growing situation.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said that efforts such as the Day of Service event give an opportunity for community members, community leaders as well as local politicians to work together