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For over 12 years, Brown Bag Lady has served the unhoused with compassion showing up consistently, building real relationships rooted in trust, dignity, and care.
Through that work, we witnessed a heartbreaking reality:
Siblings in foster care are often separated.
Placed in different homes.
Different cities.
Different lives.
And in that separation, they lose more than just familiarity they lose the one person who shares their story, their history, their sense of belonging.
So we created something to change that.
Each summer, we bring them back together.
In the quiet beauty of Big Bear, we host a one week sleepaway camp dedicated to reuniting foster siblings giving them something many haven’t felt in a long time:
Connection, Safety, and Love.
Here, they are free to just be kids again laughing without worry, kayaking across the lake, learning archery, roasting s’mores under a sky full of stars, and falling asleep knowing their sibling is right there beside them.
For some, it’s the first time in months they’ve been able to hug each other.
To talk freely.
To simply exist together again.
And in those moments… something powerful happens.
Walls come down.
Joy returns.
Healing begins.
Most importantly they remember they are not alone.
No one is paid to make this happen.
Every counselor, every volunteer shows up with heart.
This camp is built on love, sacrifice, and the generosity of people who care.
And while it’s only one week it becomes a memory they carry for the rest of their lives.
A reminder that they are seen.
That they are loved.
That they still have each other.
This is where you come in.
If you’d like to become a Foster Youth Camp Sponsor and help create an experience they’ll cherish for a lifetime, please consider →Sponsoring a Camper Today.
You can also make an impact by giving a monetary donation. Any amount helps!
Your support provides meals, safe shelter, outdoor experiences, and the simple but powerful gift of togetherness.
You’re not just funding a camp you’re helping restore bonds that should have never been broken.
Because every child deserves to feel safe.
Every child deserves joy.
And no sibling should have to grow up feeling alone in this world.
GIVING
I can only give what I have. And when I receive, I give it back.
~Chaka Khan
"Why do We Do...
What we do!"
Tom Wait - 8/1/2024
Meet "The Brown Bag Lady," whose wrong turn led her on the path to helping the homeless
Tom Wait introduces "The Brown Bag Lady," who once took a wrong turn when leaving a Lakers game that ended up being a move in the right direction, now having served more than 100,000 homeless people on the streets of LA.
Some of the things that
warmed our heart in 2023.
'We have to help people, we've got to': Serving culinary delights to L.A.'s homeless
Jacqueline Norvell, known as the Brown Bag Lady, prepares beautiful meals
and serves them to the unhoused on L.A.'s Skid Row.
Womankind, USA TODAY
Brown Bag Lady, prepares beautiful meals and serves them to the unhoused on L.A.'s Skid Row.
Brown Bag Lady on The Ellen DeGeneres Show!
The Brown Bag Lady Is Helping Thousands of Homeless in California
In Focus
with Brown Bag Lady
In Focus with Brown Bag Lady
Kelly Checks In With LA Woman(Brown Bag Lady) Aiding Homeless & Foster Care Kids
Kelly Checks In With Brown Bag Lady
VANS TEAMS UP WITH BROWN BAG LADY TO
GIVE BACK TO LOS ANGELES
Vans teamed up with Los Angeles-based nonprofit, Brown Bag Lady, to donate care packages and meals to un-homed people in the greater Los Angeles area. Eight years ago, Jacqueline Norvell a.k.a “The Brown Bag Lady”, began preparing and delivering meals to the un-homed community along Skid Row in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles.
Lay's & Amazon have teamed up to recognize some of their #JOYGIVERs
We Appreciate Our Wonderful Sponsors
