Project Ropa
| Our mission | The mission of Project Ropa is to restore dignity, rekindle optimism and empower lives by bringing clean clothing and access to other hygiene services directly to our homeless neighbors. |
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| Needs |
Organize Clothing Donations and Create Hygiene KitsHelp organize clothing donations and create hygiene kits with us for our services. Volunteer opportunities on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9am-3pm and on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month at our warehouse in Gardena.Mobile Service VolunteerVolunteers with help with greeting our clients and helping distribute hygiene and clothing items. This is an outdoor rain or shine program and you should be comfortable working in all weather conditions. You must be prepared to deal with challenging circumstances that can include the mental health and personal hygiene of our clients. We will provide you with PPE (mask, gloves, hygiene and cleaning supplies). The hours of service are from 8:30am-12pm on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month in Echo Park and 10am-2pm on the 2nd Thursday of the month in Boyle Heights. |
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| How you help |
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| About us | Project Ropa was founded in 2016 by Caitlin Adler to address the challenges that homeless people face in obtaining and keeping clean clothes. Though homelessness is accompanied by many deprivations — from food, to shelter, to safety — one of its greatest indignities comes from the absence of hygiene services. When you’re homeless, it doesn’t take long to look that way, and the world and your options in it shrink. Access to hygiene services is a human right yet for many people experiencing homelessness there are often significant barriers to proper hygiene. Most homeless people literally have only the clothes on their backs. Access to clean clothing is essential to the overall well-being of a person and can be the key to opening doors to employment and housing. We provide a curated selection of new and gently used high-quality men’s and women’s clothing, shoes and accessories, along with personal hygiene products — all donated by local manufacturers, retailers and nonprofit partners — which we bring to locations throughout the city each week in a retrofitted van that acts as a mobile walk-in closet. At the same time, the people we serve can take a shower offered by another mobile-service provider with whom we work in tandem. We believe in second chances for people who want to turn their lives around. Our vision is to help break the cycle of homelessness by restoring dignity and creating living-wage job opportunities for people with barriers to employment. |
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| What people say |
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