LOS ANGELES, March 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Leaders in entertainment, business, hospitality, philanthropy, politics, and the arts will gather at the 8th Annual Big Sunday Gala, celebrating 24 years of the organization’s work and four distinguished honorees – Marc Canter, Lauren Pomerantz and Elizabeth Higgins Clark, and Live Nation on Thursday evening, March 23rd, 2023 at Candela La Brea, 831 South La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, California 90036, beginning at 6:30 PM PT. Big Sunday is one of the USA’s foremost organizations connecting people through helping and opportunities to volunteer.
All four honorees have participated with Big Sunday for many years.
Marc Canter has been involved with Big Sunday since the organization began in 1999. Through his landmark restaurant, Canter’s Deli, he has generously provided delicious food for thousands of people at countless events, not to mention hosting Big Sunday’s Bingo ‘n Bagels (with celebrity callers) for underserved people in Canter’s famous “Kibitz Room”. Canter’s Deli opened in 1931 in Boyle Heights, later moving to the Fairfax District of Los Angeles. Over the years, countless notable public figures, movie stars and celebrities have frequented Canter’s. The Kibitz Room, opened in 1961, has its own rich music history and has hosted many famous musicians over the decades. In 2007, Marc published a book about the early days of Guns N’ Roses having been the official photographer for the band in 1985/1986 during which he documented their first fifty gigs while helping support the band in a variety of ways. Marc’s photos appear in the album artwork of “Appetite for Destruction” and Guns N’ Roses “Live Era 87-93”. Marc’s photos have appeared on MTV, VH1, and in many magazines around the world including Rolling Stone.
Elizabeth Higgins Clark and Lauren Pomerantz have supported Big Sunday in many ways for many years. During COVID they expanded their involvement, engaging friends, family and coworkers from all over the country to help support Big Sunday’s COVID relief efforts, particularly the organization’s Foot the Bill fund where Big Sunday helped struggling people across the USA to pay all kinds of bills to stay afloat during the pandemic. Elizabeth is an actress known for her roles in “Lucky Day”, “My Gal Sunday“, and “Mrs. Washington Goes to Smith”, among many others. She is also a writer and fertility education advocate with a focus on educating women about all information related to fertility and early genetic testing. Lauren is a multiple Emmy-winning writer and producer known for “Me, Myself and I”, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”, “Saturday Night Live”, and others. Her most recent work is “Am I OK”, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2022, and is the feature directorial debut by Tig Notaro and Stephanie Allynne.
Live Nation has generously supported Big Sunday for the better part of a decade. The company has consistently and reliably supported Big Sunday’s many programs with generous financial donations. Plus, each year Live Nation is kind enough to provide tickets to top-name concerts for Big Sunday to auction off during its annual gala. Live Nation has provided tickets to acts such as Bruno Mars, Paul McCartney and, this year, Beyoncé, which have been extremely popular as a way to raise funds for Big Sunday. As the world’s leading live entertainment company, Live Nation produces more concerts, sells more tickets, and connects more brands to music than anyone else in the world.
“I’m so excited to be able to celebrate our gala in person – we have such wonderful honorees, and it’s a great way to celebrate an amazing year for Big Sunday, while kicking off a new one!” said David Levinson, Big Sunday’s founder and executive director. Levinson, the author of Everyone Helps, Everyone Wins, How Absolutely Anyone Can Pitch In. Help Out. and Give Back. to Make the World a Better Place, is considered an expert in the field of volunteerism who is consulted widely by cities, nonprofits and other volunteer groups.
Big Sunday (www.bigsunday.org) has been connecting people with opportunities to help, volunteer and to do good works together since 1999. Founded in Los Angeles by David Levinson with just 300 volunteers, Big Sunday has touched over a 1 million lives, engaging, empowering and uniting people of every imaginable background all over California, from San Diego to San Francisco, and in more than 20 different states as well as Australia and the UK. Big Sunday has completed in excess of 1.75 million volunteer man-hours and the organization has collected and distributed hundreds of thousands of items of clothing, food, toiletries, school supplies, furniture, appliances and other essentials. The organization functions as an efficient and impactful clearing-house of volunteerism, giving and community engagement. Big Sunday produces, promotes or sponsors over 2000 unique helping opportunities every year, which engage, empower, and unite people of every age, background and means to work together to support the huge variety of causes that they care about. Big Sunday’s mission is to connect people and build community via helping and is driven by the belief that absolutely everyone has some way that they can help someone else. Big Sunday was named by the Points of Light Foundation as one of “10 national nonprofits that are making a tremendous impact on our country’s most critical challenges by mobilizing volunteers…These organizations also demonstrate a collaborative spirit through partnerships with other organizations to help strengthen communities across the nation.”
MEDIA CREDENTIALING: PRIVATE EVENT — ALL MEDIA MUST BE PRE-REGISTERED AND APPROVED FOR A CREDENTIAL. Media RSVP and Talent Inquiries: Rachel Schwartz/PR AdvantEDGE, Inc.
Big Sunday’s 8th Annual Gala is generously sponsored by:
GOLD SPONSOR
Live Nation
SILVER SPONSOR
Anonymous
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
King & Spalding LLP
Aliza and Michael Lesser
Howie and Susie Mandel
Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP
Mirate
Mobilitie
NBCUniversal
Netflix
O’Melveny and Myers
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
Michael Skloff
Titos Handmade Vodka
Wells Fargo
BRONZE SPONSOR
Anonymous
Ballard Spahr LLP
Alan Bernstein
Deloitte Consulting
Mandavia Ephraim + Burg, LLP
Mattel, Inc.
Linda Perlman and Family
SalesForce
Tichenor & Thorp Architects, Inc.
Venable LLP
Williams & Connolly LLP
Wood Smith Henning & Berman LLP
COPPER SPONSOR
American Business Bank
Avitas Wealth Management
Century Housing
Ina Coleman and Family
The Corwin Family Foundation
Duffy Kruspodin LLP
Elizabeth and Glen Friedman
Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary
Kevin Huvane
Richard Lovett
Mission Cloud
Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP
NextBite
Seyfarth Shaw LLP
Jon Vein & Ellen Goldsmith-Vein (The Gotham Group)
Contact: Rachel Schwartz/PR AdvantEDGE Inc.
310.990.2764
[email protected]
SOURCE Big Sunday