Arts Fair
The 3rd Annual Big Sunday Arts Fair will be held at Big Sunday’s main hub site at the historic Farmer’s Market, corner of Third Street and Fairfax Avenue. The Arts Fair will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 3. There will be interactive performances and crafts, including puppet making and performing in a puppet show, dance and musical performances, creating beautiful Big Sunday flowerpots for shut-ins, face painting, collages, print art, paper-clip jewelry, creating Mother’s Day gifts and much more. If you’re interested in volunteering contact Tashanda Giles-Jones at lenore90019@yahoo.com or call 310.623.7154. Or, just come by and have fun — we can’t wait to see you.

Blood Drives
We know we’ve asked you for everything else — now we want your blood, too! Help the American Red Cross and other blood banks (especially now that the nation’s blood supply is dangerously low) by giving blood at locations throughout the Southland. Click here to see a list of Big Sunday Hub sites where Blood Drives are being held.

Collecting Change for Change
This is a wonderful — and really easy — project that benefits The Hero Initiative, a great organization that helps former comic book professionals in times of financial need. Many of these talented people, who helped create some of our favorite characters and stories, worked at a time when there were no royalties, retirement plans or medical insurance for their profession. At many of Big Sunday’s most-attended sites, volunteers for Change for Change ask people to donate the loose change in their pockets. If you’d like to help with this project, click here to go to the Big Sunday Project Sign-Up page and then type in the keyword “comic” in the yellow box on the right-hand side of the page. After you sign up, we’ll assign you a location and time for your collection shift. We’ll provide you with the donation jar, a list of bullet points outlining what The Hero Initiative is all about so you can explain it to potential donors, and then turn you loose. Whether you collect a lot of money or just a few bucks, every little bit helps. Once your shift is done, you’ll return your donation jar to the Big Sunday office at 7319 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, 90036. If you’re coordinating a project and you’d like Change for Change to come to your site, let us know that, too. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Adam Beechen at sonnova@att.net.

Flea Market
This year the Big Sunday Flea Market will be held at a great new location — at the corner of Third Street and Fairfax Avenue—thanks to the generosity of the folks at the historic Farmer’s Market. We’ll be selling just about anything and everything. And we need just about anything and everything to sell. All proceeds will go to “We Tell Stories,” one of Los Angeles’ oldest and most respected theater companies, whose very existence has been threatened by the recent downturn in the economy. We at Big Sunday are eager to help them out. You can too. Click here if you’d like to sign up to work at the Flea Market and then type in the keywords “flea market” in the yellow search box on the right hand side of the page. Look for projects No. 487 and No. 488. If you’d like to donate your old stuff to the market, contact Deena Rubinson at deenspot@gmail.com. And if you’d simply like to come out on Big Sunday weekend and shop, we’ll be there from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It should be lots of fun.

Also new this year, we’ll be hosting a Crafts Fair at the same time and in the same location as the Flea Market. Mothers2Mothers will be selling beautiful African bracelets to benefit the organization, which provides education and support for pregnant women and new mothers living with HIV/AIDS in Africa. Presbyterian Church USA will sell T-shirts produced by a women’s sewing cooperative in Nicaragua. The proceeds will benefit the collective and the Nueva Vida Fair Trade Zone project. And Chiapas will be selling fantastic handmade designs from a Zapatista women’s cooperative in rural southern Mexico. All proceeds go to Doctors for Global Health. (Chiapas also will be selling its wonderful handbags, clothes, linens and other great stuff at the Immaculate Conception School – see project No. 275 for details; and the 42nd Street Elementary School, project No. 189.) Meanwhile, several other groups will also be on hand selling their fabulous crafts for the benefit of Big Sunday. Everyone Shops, Everyone Wins.

Lemonade Stands
It’s The 3rd Annual When Life Gives You Lemons Make Lemonade Stand Project. Each year our volunteers — many of them kids — set up lemonade stands across Southern California and sell lemonade to benefit local children’s charities. The Big Sunday lemonade stands are set up at the end of driveways, in schools, in parks, at farmer’s markets, in malls and at other locations far and wide. This year Big Sunday lemonade stands will raise money for five great charities: the Los Angeles Times Summer Camp Campaign, which offers scholarships to low-income children; Para Los Ninos, which provides educational and direct services to low-income families; Shane’s Inspiration, which builds accessible playgrounds for children with disabilities; Mothers Against Drunk Driving — Orange County Chapter, which supports programs to stop drunk driving and prevent underage drinking; and the Young Storytellers Foundation, a writing program that helps low-income schoolchildren develop literacy, self-expression and self-esteem. Each lemonade stand chooses one of the five charities to support. Click here to find a lemonade stand location near you—and then buy a cup or two or three—and help support these wonderful groups.

“Polishing Off Lung Cancer” Nail Polish Booths
Big Sunday is hosting our first ever Polishing Off Lung Cancer booths to benefit and raise awareness for the Lung Cancer Foundation of America. LCFA is a wonderful new nonprofit created to help fund research to provide early detection, treatment and, eventually, to find a cure for lung cancer, the No. 1 cancer killer. Recently, OPI (the nail polish company), generously introduced BreatheLife, a new nail polish specially designed to call attention to LCFA’s important work. On Big Sunday weekend, volunteers will host nail polish booths all over Southern California, where, for a small donation, people can get their nails polished a cool BreatheLife blue. All profits will go to LCFA. Click here to find out how you can host a nail polish booth. Click here to find a list of the many locations where you can have your nails polished and help LCFA fight this deadly disease.

Recycle Fest
You can help the environment — and Big Sunday, too — by bringing your electronic waste to our special Recycle Fest on Big Sunday weekend. Whether it’s that dusty computer monitor sitting in the garage or that old cell phone you bought three years ago, Big Sunday will take it off your hands. We’ll be collecting all sorts of electronic waste, including printers, computer towers, televisions, cell phones, ink and laser cartridges, video games and consoles, digital cameras, laptops, PDAs/Palm Pilots, iPods, DVD movies, GPS devices, calculators and more. To find a location near you that’s collecting these items, click here. This This is a great way to clean clutter out of your home. Cartridges for Kids will collect the recyclables, and the money it raises from the sale of those items will benefit Big Sunday. Everyone recycles, everyone wins!

Support the Fight Against Melanoma
Brandon Keefe will be spending Big Sunday weekend taking part in The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Team In Training (which also works to find a cure for Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma). He’s doing this in honor of his dad, Gary, who is fighting metastasized melanoma. Brandon, who is 23, is raising money by training for the Wildflower Olympic triathlon. The triathlon is on May 3 and includes a .93-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride (over some pretty hefty central coast hills), followed by a 6.2-mile run. (Better him than us.) He’s been training six days a week, rain or shine, for months to get ready. We’ve never done this before, but here at Big Sunday we’re really impressed by what Brandon is doing, so we’re going to support him by contributing $100 to the LLS Society. If you would like to sponsor Brandon and help him reach — or even surpass — his goal of raising $3,000, please click here and make your donation in any amount. If you have questions, feel free to email Brandon at bkeefe@ucla.edu.