Loving Hands Community Care

In 2008, Loving Hands Community Care, Inc. was founded by Kathy Wooten, a Los Angeles mother who lost two sons to gang violence earlier that year. Since then, she has become a leader within her community and a beacon of strength and guidance for others whose children have passed away. Although Loving Hands was originally founded from Wooten's experience as a mother, the organization provides a variety of resources and support to all members of these grieving families. Through support groups, events for affected siblings, and weekly outreach events, Loving Hands provides an empathetic community for bereaved families. In recent years, the organization has expanded its reach beyond families traumatized by gang violence to include those throughout the Los Angeles area who have experienced the loss of a child.

Through outreach events such as the Mother's Day Annual Healing Luncheon, Loving Hands is dedicated to building empathy and connection where anger and divisiveness have long held sway. In recent years, the luncheon has brought together women from all three housing developments in Watts, despite a history of conflicts that have traditionally divided those communities. It is by building unity in this way that Loving Hands inspires mothers to join together to move beyond their crippling grief and to use their shared strength as a platform to open dialogue and seek resolutions to complex issues that their families and communities face.