A youth-led nonprofit has partnered with a Long Beach church to provide dozens of families with Thanksgiving meals this holiday season.<\/p>\n
Ella Shahbazian is a sophomore at Rose & Alex Pilibos Armenian School in Hollywood who started her nonprofit \u2014 Ella\u2019s Angels \u2014 three years ago. Her goal was to get young people like herself involved in community service, and now, she\u2019s giving back to a community she has grown to love.<\/p>\n
This Thanksgiving, Ella\u2019s Angels has partnered with the Greater Harvest Church in Long Beach to feed 100 families in need through their \u201cThanksgiving Bags with All the Trimmings\u201d program.<\/p>\n
\u201cEver since I was a kid, I\u2019ve just always loved helping people,\u201d Shahbazian said in an interview, \u201cand as I grew older, I wanted to continue helping people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 15-year-old started her nonprofit with toy drives to Children\u2019s Hospital Los Angeles and beach cleanups in Long Beach, and has now continued to grow with their Thanksgiving food drive, as well as providing scholarships to students in underrepresented communities and creating handmade Valentine cards and care packages for hospitalized veterans.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit\u2019s vision is to empower young people of all backgrounds to become catalysts for change and make a positive impact on their communities, according to its website<\/a>. Shahbazian said she envisions a world where youth are actively engaged in volunteerism, nurturing their compassion and leadership skills while addressing critical social issues.<\/p>\n At her young age, Shahbazian is already a published author, a 4.0 GPA student, and a varsity tennis player \u2014 with dreams of attending Yale University and Yale Law School to continue her advocacy for youth, families and equality.<\/p>\n The Thanksgiving food drive is one of the most meaningful events that Ella\u2019s Angels has done, Shahbazian said, because it will bring neighbors together to share kindness, compassion and gratitude.<\/p>\n \u201cElla\u2019s Angels reminds us what true service looks like \u2014 young people leading with heart,\u201d Pastor Gerald Johnson of Greater Harvest Church said in a statement. \u201cThis Thanksgiving drive will bless families in ways that go far beyond a meal.\u201d<\/p>\n Shahbazian said she wanted to help the Long Beach community because of her connection to the city.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought about this idea a year ago,\u201d she said, \u201cand I really wanted to help that area, because I feel like I have a connection with Long Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n The Thanksgiving food giveaway will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 26, at the church. While not all 100 meals are funded yet, Shahbazian said that Ella\u2019s Angels will still make the goal possible. Each $45 donation covers a complete family meal \u2014 including turkey, sides, dessert, and a reusable tote bag.<\/p>\n \u201cThis means a lot to me,\u201d Shahbazian said. \u201cI love helping people, and I\u2019m excited to be able to see their faces when we\u2019re handing out the meals to them. I feel like it\u2019s going to leave a really big impact on me because maybe without this, they wouldn\u2019t have had a Thanksgiving meal to eat with their families.\u201d<\/p>\n Long Beach community members who are interested in making a donation or signing up to volunteer can visit ellasangels.org<\/a>. For families in need, sign-ups to receive a meal bag are on the website<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n Shahbazian said that she hopes to continue to grow this Thanksgiving food drive in the future and reach more families in need.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a start,\u201d she said, noting that she hopes it\u2019ll also help inspire other young people to make a difference in their communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A youth-led nonprofit has partnered with a Long Beach church to provide dozens of families with Thanksgiving meals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,3782,3739,131,133,132,137,3738],"class_list":{"0":"post-40963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-grunion-kindness","10":"tag-grunion-news","11":"tag-long-beach","12":"tag-long-beach-headlines","13":"tag-long-beach-news","14":"tag-los-angeles-county","15":"tag-the-grunion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}