RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. \u2014 Every holiday season, retired Los Angeles city engineer, Zaki Mustafa, builds a new tradition: spreading warmth and compassion to those in need.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Zaki Mustafa is a retired LADOT engineer with over 32 years of service<\/p>\n
He began distributing jackets after a chance encounter in 2017<\/p>\n
Mustafa and his wife have given out more than 100,000 jackets since retiring<\/p>\n
Their work includes helping homeless veterans during the holidays<\/p>\n
From his backyard shed, he organizes thousands of jackets that end up on the backs of people experiencing homelessness \u2014 many of them veterans \u2014 across Skid Row and beyond.<\/p>\n
Mustafa\u2019s mission began in 2017, after giving the coat off his back to a man shivering near Union Station. Since then, he and his wife, Loretta, have dedicated their time and personal resources to making sure no one is left out in the cold.<\/p>\n
This year alone, Mustafa said his organization distributed over 15,000 jackets and fed more than 4,000 people.<\/p>\n
On a recent stop at a Salvation Army shelter in Bell, Navy veteran Lord Bartlett said the gesture meant more than just staying warm \u2014 it restored dignity and human connection.<\/p>\n
After more than three decades helping build LA’s transportation infrastructure, Mustafa now focuses on building trust and compassion, one jacket at a time.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019d like to donate or get involved, you can find Zaki Mustafa\u2019s organization on Facebook, Transforming a Life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif. \u2014 Every holiday season, retired Los Angeles city engineer, Zaki Mustafa, builds a new tradition:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[26528,31532,7,2646,31533,48,52,51,47,6634,50,49,31534,5996],"class_list":["post-98998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anna-albaryan","tag-app-human-interest","tag-california","tag-holidays","tag-human-interest","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-app-region","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-socal-editors-picks","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98998","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=98998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}