While Southern California is a traditionally warm location, the beach climate of Westside Los Angeles can give way to some windy, cooler nights. This can affect those who are homeless, as many are on the streets when the temperatures drop, leading to some potentially devastating health impacts.
Crossroads School freshman Nathan Ravitz saw this happening in his community, deciding to take a lead from his family on the East Coast and distribute warm clothing to Westside shelters. Over the past two years, Ravitz has become the Los Angeles representative of Hoodies for the Homeless, a nonprofit started by his cousin Zach Rosner in New Jersey. In the past 10 months alone, Ravitz has collected more than 2,500 sweatshirts, donating them to places like Upward Bound House and The People Concern in Santa Monica, as well as Venice Family Clinic, West LA Homeless and PATH.
Ravitz has taken initiative at Crossroads, setting up a donation bin at the school, as well as soliciting donations in his Cheviot Hills neighborhood, regularly ending up with 20 bags of sweatshirts in his living room.
"It [gets] cold out, and the homeless obviously don’t have a home, so they need to find some security, something to keep them warm [and] make them at least feel at home," Ravitz said. "So I think that was the point of the hoodies. It’s also a thing a lot of people have just lying around that they don’t need."
He "divided and conquered" in reaching out to shelters that would take the donations with his mother, Lauren Ravitz, and together they were able to find homes for the hoodies despite some locations still hesitant to take donations coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lauren stated that her nephew, founder Rosner, would see youth get sweatshirts as commemorations of events like Bar Mitzvahs, but only wear them briefly, prompting the idea of donating them instead.
"These kids were wearing these hoodies a couple of times and then kind of [tossed] them … [we] saw that there was a surplus of these items that everyone was wearing to school for a couple weeks and then … what are you going to do with them?," Lauren said.
She added that the endeavor has taken Nathan out of his comfort zone and that the opportunity was good for him to take the lead on. Officials in Los Angeles agreed, as Nathan was recently recognized for his achievements during a ceremony, receiving commendations from Los Angeles City Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky.
"I just felt like we’re in Los Angeles, we’re in a huge city [and] it’s very hard to get recognized or for people to pay attention to youth that are doing good things … it was just a really proud moment to see him on stage," Lauren said of her son.
Nathan said it was "really beautiful" to receive the honor, a culmination of his growing organizational and leadership skills.
"It’s definitely taken a little bit of my time, but at the end of the day, it’s really not that much, and it’s just good for the homeless people," he said.
His mission now revolves around gaining extra support from individuals and organizations, whether that be more opportunities to solicit donations, or finding more shelters and organizations to take on the sweatshirt supply.
To contact Ravitz and the Los Angeles chapter of Hoodies for the Homeless, visit Hoodies for the Homeless on Instagram or their website.
