The Global Donation Initiative (GDI), a program of the Agency, helps worldwide to put resources into the hands of people who desperately need them, which include underrepresented and underprivileged individuals and families, for example, victims affected by natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis.

When the program was newly formed in January 2009, program volunteers began collecting and storing tons of used clothes and toys as well as office and living supplies into storage units around Southern California. 

Hundreds of items collected through the program were directly delivered to the Los Angeles Mission, which for the past 75 years has been providing compassionate and humanitarian services to many thousands of people in desperate need of help, such as the homeless living on the streets of downtown’s Skid Row. The director of the L.A. Mission kindly gave the program volunteers a full private tour of the entire facility and explained to them who they are and what they do. They were very happy to receive what we donated to them.