St. Francis Center - Adopt A Family Program

“Our Friend in the City”

St. Francis Center is a multi-service community center, founded in 1972 by the Franciscans in response to the growing numbers of homeless individuals and poor families approaching St. Joseph Church for assistance.
Today, St. Francis Center services approximately 500 extremely low-income families, their children, and seniors. At the same time, the Center continues its original mission to help the homeless. The Center is located in the shadow of the downtown sports complexes near USC, specifically servicing the Garment District and South Park District of inner-city Los Angeles. In an area marked by sweatshops, gang violence, and drugs, St. Francis Center has become a refuge for the marginalized and a voice for the weak, primarily Latino and African American families with an average monthly income of about $550.

St. Julie’s Adopt-A-Family Mission Outreach Program

      Our parishioners have been adopting families from Our Friend’s in the City at the St. Francis Center in downtown Los Angeles for many years now.  Some years we have adopted as many as 140 families and recently we are adopting about 100 families each season.  It is very rewarding and the families from the St. Francis Center who we help are very grateful and appreciate all we do for them.  There is no pre-designated amount you have to give, you can choose the size of the family you feel comfortable adopting, and if you choose, you can adopt with a friend or another family from St. Julie’s.

Participate in this Outreach Program

If you decide to participate in this mission outreach program and adopt a family from the St. Francis Center, your only commitment will be to provide a food bin (or Gift Card for food) for a family from the St. Francis Center three times during this season, which will be at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  You will be responsible to purchase and package up food and/or household items from a list of suggestions we give you (or provide a greeting card and gift card for the amount you are comfortable with donating) and just drop it off at our St. Julie’s parish hall on a pre-designated day, which is usually about a week and a half before the holiday.

Covid's Impact on St. Francis Center

Since Covid, we have been providing Gift Card Only donations, but this may change at any time, and we will go back to having the option of providing food and household items.
 

Adopt a Family!

 If you are interested in adopting a family, (you can team up with another family from our parish, or get a group together) you can sign up at Stewardship Sunday, email [email protected] or contact Jane Coccia 310-567-8311 or Cheryl Watson at 805-795-6153 at any time throughout the year.

    •    We will email or call you, and send you reminders in the mail before each holiday.