Hillside LA opens its doors to our community.

We can better serve our community together by aligning our goals. It is crucial to our success in being an inclusive church where everyone is welcome.  

Hillside LA efforts include food distribution, clothing and toy drives, backpack and school supplies, haircuts, hygiene kits, COVID testing, supplying tents and tamales!

We welcome partnerships with the city of LA and organizations that serve our neighbors and our city. Through our partnership with the County of Los Angeles, we have distributed over 10,000 meals and assisted in the distribution of over 620,000 meals to both residents in Permanent Supportive Housing and unsheltered people throughout LA County. 


Our Ministries


Breaking Bread

In 2013, Hillside LA began to serve meals to people experiencing homelessness in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. Although we loved serving food to our unhoused neighbors, we realized this approach left little room for meaningful interaction between our volunteers and the people we were serving. The assembly line approach was efficient, however, the table of food became an unintentional physical and spiritual barrier to the people we were serving food to. Although we were fulfilling the need of providing meals and providing nutrition, there was still a deep hunger for human interaction and a soulful exchange of spirit. We realized there was a spiritual hunger for connection on both sides of the table. With a desire to engage and connect, we began a new approach serving meals at smaller homeless camps within our own neighborhood of El Sereno. We invited our church volunteers to sit down with people and share a meal and have a conversation.

Breaking Bread was born out of a desire to build relationships with our unhoused neighbors and to invite them into the safe refuge and community of Hillside LA. Our goal is to help people experiencing homlessness find housing and jobs, while providing a loving community of support and the invitation to belong to a spiritual family. 


Showers of Grace

Through our outreach program Breaking Bread, we’ve learned about the daily struggles our unhoused neighbors face while living on our streets. Access to clean water, toilets, and showers are some of the basic services and needs that aren’t being met. 

After a few requests for showers during our outreach, our team at Hillside LA added pop-up showers as a service through our Breaking Bread outreach. Although the showers were a big hit, the manual process and maintenance of the pop up showers wasn’t sustainable. That’s when the idea of a mobile shower was concepted and “Showers of Grace” was born.  The mobile shower was a game-changer for our outreach, and many of our friends who were experiencing homelessness also began to visit our church because of our shower service and outreach. We are proud to say that through our outreach, we have been able to help people experiencing homelessness find shelter and permanent housing.  However most importantly, we’ve helped those who were seeking a spiritual refuge, find a church where they are not being judged or excluded. At Hillside LA, people experiencing homelessness are given the opportunity to take showers every Sunday and are invited to come into the house of God with dignity and self-confidence.

The goal of Breaking Bread and Showers of Grace is to build trust and create community with our unhoused neighbors. 


Our Impact

 
 

10

members of our congregation have successfully transitioned from the streets into housing through Breaking Bread.

 

1,000+

COVID-Tests have been administered via CORE, in partnership with Council District 14.

 

10,000

meals served to our unhoused neighbors, in partnership with LA County DHS.


Community Partners

Together with our generous sponsors and community partners, we’re able to do great things! We’re proud and humbled by the impact we’ve been able to make in our community. Contact us if you have a product or service you’d like to donate. 

 

Interested in volunteering? Know of a business that would like to sponsor our efforts? Looking to access services? We’d love to hear from you.