Hello friends—

I wanted to take a moment to wish you and your families a safe, warm and wonderful holiday.

Every family has their own holiday traditions. In mine, we like to spend time during the holiday season volunteering at a local shelter, then we go home and cook tamales and pozole. So this morning, we went to the LA Mission to serve thousands of traditional holiday meals to the needy and hungry.

There's an old saying: those who are blessed need to bless back. Well, I'm truly blessed, and was so happy to be able to volunteer with my children to help those less fortunate than we.

And we were not the only ones. I'm a frequent visitor at the Mission and each time I see lots of the same volunteers, some who volunteer for just a day and some who volunteer 365 days a year. Either way, these people are heroes making LA a better, kinder, more unified city.

I know not everyone has time to volunteer, but if you're interested in giving back this holiday season or any season, go to our volunteer page and check out the many opportunities for service available throughout our great city.

Cheers and happy holidays,

Antonio Villaraigosa