Union Station Homeless Services

I found out about this non-​profit through their Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner-​In-​The-​Park events. They serve hot meal to the homeless people in our community. It is absolutely an amazing events! I got to work with many people who have the same passion to give. Most important sharing holiday joys with people who are in need.
This non-​profit has started in 1973. They have done so many wonderful things helping homeless people. I attended their orientation and was so impressed with what they have achieved today.
There are many volunteer opportunity. They have a great volunteer website system, it is very user friendly to sign up volunteer events. If you are interested in volunteering, this might be a place for you!
They have their own private parking lot so parking is never an issue.

Donated ton of boxed lunches from a work event — they welcomed them with open arms. Maribel helped me unload — super sweet. Great work and much needed. Glad food didn’t go to waste !

Two years ago, I headed a team of 15 amazing people who volunteered with me to help feed the homeless on Thanksgiving Day. We also did washed trays, picked up trash, and helped moved chairs and tables to get loaded up into trucks. Experiences like these are what keeps me from coming back every year to help out as much as possible. Doing these acts of kindness makes me feel happy that we are making an impact on other people’s lives one person at a time!
Continue to do great things Union Station Homeless Services! I will also do my part!

To donate food there’s an additional location: 412 S. Raymond Ave., Pasadena 91 105
Easy drop off process, just buzz to get into the gated property.

Tried to set up a recurring donation on their website and it rejected my credit card three times. The website said that they were having problems, so call this number. I called the number and was confronted with a touch tone menu that gave no info on what number to press to give a donation.
Their phone directory was no help either, and when I tried to go back to the main menu, it disconnected me. So I sent an email to their donation email address, asking someone to call me so I could start a monthly donation. Two weeks have passed and no one has phoned me.
I will be donating to another organization instead.

I checked out the Homeless shelter at the Union Station in Pasadena. There is a home-​depot close by and of-​course the train station. I come here often and see groups of transients all the time. Some sleeping on the pavement.
Today I checked out the shelter. They provide all types of services, beds at night, apartments for families and food service with Food bank and soup kitchen.
Well I decided to help them and they take all type of donations, cash and kind. You just drive over and drop your stuff even clothes and food items.
Since the Union station provides 90 minutes free parking lot of the homeless vehicles were parked there.
This is a great service and all of us should get involved.

i wanted to donate clothing and food, so I checked up Unilocal and found the Union Station Homeless Shelter. I was advised that the shelter wouldn’t take half my things, which includes hot cocoa, snack packs of cookies and chips, etc. Shelters, I was told, appreciate canned veggies (especially in bulk), canned produce, canned meats, hygiene products, dried pasta.
I called ahead of time, and it seemed like Union Station would only accept my canned green beans, which was fine. But when I arrived, the woman at the desk was super appreciative of anything I would give. «We accept anything that comes from the heart,» she said. Super sweet!
The Union Shelter will accept food here for their clients, but clothing donations née to be dropped off a couple miles away at the ACTS Thrift Store — Union Station runs out of room, so they have an agreement with the Thrift Store to accept donations there, so clients from the Union Station can go over there and get clothes.
Union Station has a great, heartfelt vibe. I would love to go back and give!

Years ago, when I was more into community service and thought I could save the world I used to volunteer thanksgiving day during their annual Thanksgiving in the park. Well more or less try to volunteer, since there were so many people I wound up putting a couple forks on a table and not much else.
So decided years after not volunteering to try it again, though I have honestly been wanting to go back for a couple years was either too bus or too lazy. So decided to do it again and saw that they needed more help on Wednesday than they do on thanksgiving. This was a very smart idea and also rewarding experience.
So the only negative about volunteering or even visiting Union Station is that they have limited parking at the center and 2 hours on the street. But honestly this is a small price to pay volunteering is involved. So parked at the Union station train station near by.
So I’ve never actually visited the building, but I was quite surprised it was rather clean and nice. There was a substantial amount of homeless around, but they pretty much kept to themselves and didnt pester the volunteers. Some even appeared to be volunteering and helping out as well. The people who worked there were rather nice and very thankful for our help, as we got to actually do alot of work, which I was very happy to do — hours of it in fact. They even served us lunch which I was not expecting.
Overall I really enjoyed the experience and would totally volunteer again, especially on the day when they need more people.

Union Station does a lot more than just the Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners in the Park. It is true if you volunteer for these events, there will be lots of standing around and waiting around if you have no initiative, but if you really want to be involved, you simply go to the areas of the event that appear to need help and just jump in. Thanksgiving 2010 I was tasked with managing the food servers and the supplying and resupplying of the food at the tables. It also ended up that I had to manage the long food lines. I brought over 100 LA Foodies to this event and after the 1.5−2 hours of standing around for many/​most of my member, once we started working the food service tables, it was great. Many of my members, keep busy by just jumping in on the food prep tables, others helped carry tables/​chairs and set them up. Others moved out of our specific area and helped in the Children’s area or other areas where they saw they could be of help.
Was there too many volunteers? Absolutely, I’d estimate over 1,000 volunteers were not really needed. But… during the holidays, good people want to volunteer and do good. I heard the X-​mas dinner was also way overstaffed with volunteers. Were all the diners homeless or in need? I’m sure lots of people were not, but there’s no way to screen people. Hey buddy… is that Rolex real? C’mon… we can’t turn people away cause they dressed nice. Also, the nicely dressed persons you saw could have been volunteers taking their meal break. Thanksgiving Day, I arrived there at 9:30am and could barely stand at around 2pm I needed to eat something and the volunteers are allowed to eat if they wish. I waited until there was no more waiting lines to eat and there was still tons of food and hundreds of pies untouched.
What many do not know is that Union Station also feeds clients in need at their Family Center providing 120 – 200 meals 3x a day as well as at their Adult Center and providing another 50 – 60 meals 3x per day with their Adopt-​A-​Meal program. Volunteer groups will use their own money to pay for all the food and come into the kitchen and prepare and serve the clients. I volunteered the LA Foodies to provide a dinner every 3^rd Thursday and each Volunteer contributes $ 10 – 15 to pay for the meal that we will prepare and serve. There’s no standing around as we only have about 1.5 hours to cook and prepare the meal for service. That’s not a whole lot of time, believe me! It is super hectic and it was all rush, rush, rush… and I think everyone also enjoyed it as I did! To me, it was a blast to cook in a real commercial kitchen for a whole lot of people and in a short amount of time. As Foodies we kicked out some delicious food, had a blast cooking for a bunch of people and the people really… I mean really appreciated our help. I had many people come up to me, some struggling with physical disabilities just to personally come up to me and to the others to personally thank us for the meal and to compliment us that the meal was delicious. I was deeply touched. This is year around volunteering and is really a great way to volunteer your time and donate a few bucks where you actually see and know where your money and time goes to. It’s not just some place to mail a check to. BUT, if you’d like to mail a check somewhere, I say donate and support Union Station, I think it’s an awesome 501©3 organization to help and your donations are tax deductible. No, I am not on staff of U.S., never have and have no financial interest in the organization. I am just an enthusiastic volunteer and supporter of them.

WHEN: Christmas Day
WHERE: Central Park, Pasadena
WHY: To give back to the community
I don’t know what to say about this organization other than UNORGANIZED.
I signed up to feed the homeless a month prior to Christmas 2010. I was excited to be apart of such a great opportunity to give back to the community. You always hear of people who never giving back and being selfish during the holidays. so this year i wanted to give back.
I showed up 45 minutes before my shift started (as told to do so). I waited in line for a total of an hour before being told:
” We don’t need your help anymore, we have too many volunteers and not enough homeless people“
Too many Volunteers? You had to sign up and be confirmed to work this event… didn’t you know how many people were confirmed? Did you not market this event to the people in need? I saw a total of 10 HOMELESS PEOPLE! WTF?
PLUS… the people who WERE eating (not volunteers)… where not even HOMELESS! I saw a tiffanys bracelet on some bitch AND some dude had a full-​breed boston terrier… helping the homeless MY ASS! SO Disappointing.
OVERALL: I would never lend a helping hand to this organization again. You wasted my time as well as others time and you took away from other organizations who NEEDED help. Shame on you.

You can find my review here:

Union Station provides homeless men, women, and children with housing, employment and life skills programs.
On the day we give thanks for all of the great things in life, what better way to pay it forward than to spend a few hours of your time to show some love to those less fortunate?
This past week, I volunteered to help serve food at their annual Thanksgiving Dinner in the park, which took place at Central Park in Old Town Pasadena.
I was in awe at the amazing display of community; countless cars driving up curbside to drop off food platters and thousands of volunteers congregated in the park, ready and eager to participate.
The hours listed on the website noted that the event would take place from 10 a.m. — 4 p.m. I was psyched to see that you didn’t have to reserve a spot and could just show up the day of to participate. This was the first time I was able to volunteer as a result. Most often, when I have looked up opportunities in the past, they were always full and not accepting additional volunteers.
I showed up right at 10 a.m. and had to circle around the surrounding neighborhoods to finally find parking. Note: meters do not need to be fed if you park on major holidays such as Thanksgiving — just read the street signs and meter signs to be sure.
I walked over to the park, waited in line to check in, and was given a sticker that assigned a duty and a line up letter/​number. The turn out of volunteers makes it a bit difficult to know where you should line up in the volunteer staging area, but it’s great that so many people came out to support.
I finally found my line and ended up waiting for two hours before I was able to do anything. The dinner was scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. and ended up starting a little after 12 noon. The way it works out is that each line alternates and takes «x» amount of people in a group and lines them up at the food tables. You keep moving down until the line stops moving and whatever food item is in front of you is what you end up serving. You are given plastic gloves and you serve for about 20 minutes. Then, the next group of people come over and assemble in the same fashion behind you, tap you out, and then you’re done.
Depending on the number of people in front of you in your designated line in addition to the amount of volunteers that turn out, don’t be surprised if you are waiting a minimum of 2 hours or more before any activity happens.
I believe the people who are with the union station and perhaps some regular volunteers are busy setting up the food and still accepting more donations before they finally get the bulk of the volunteers involved. This is kind of a bummer because there is so much power in numbers that you wonder if they could improve the way this event is planned so that the volunteers could be utilized for more than just 20 minutes of the 2+ hours that you are simply waiting in line to help.
Many of the people in line, myself included, got there early and as noon rolled by, I became hungry. Plus, most people come early thinking they could help for a few hours and still have plenty of time to make it to their families or whatever plans they have for later in the day. But with all the waiting, some people ended up having to leave prematurely without the opportunity to do what they came there to do.
They really stress that they need the most volunteers around the hours of 1:30 p.m. through 4 p.m. to help with clean up and breaking down of tables and chairs. Food serving is the most popular volunteer activity and I think the most rewarding.
I served salad, and I gotta say, even though I had to wait for 2 hours to serve for 20 minutes. it was one of the most rewarding 20 minutes I have experienced. Surprisingly, you serve a lot of people in that short time period, and just giving a smile and passing food on their plates, seeing them smile and express their gratitude was awesome.
Next time, I think I will donate food as opposed to food serving because they can always use more food and you don’t have to wait to contribute in this way. Perhaps they will figure out a way to improve the process so that volunteer efforts can be maximized by getting them involved as much as possible during the time they put in vs. down time and waiting around.
They also have volunteer opportunities the day before and after Thanksgiving, and they do a similar dinner event on Christmas day and the day before/​after as well. Toys can be donated for the children.
Check out their website and get involved in some form (I recently updated the business info to include the website so the business info should be revised on the review shortly) — there are several ways for you to do something small that makes a big difference.