Lifting Communities Out of Homelessness
Xos staff assembling sandwiches for residents of Ascencia
Here at Xos, building relationships is an important part of not only how we do business, but also how we continue to grow. These relationships don’t just include our partnerships with suppliers, customers, and other manufacturers, but also with organizations in our community. For this quarter’s initiative with the Xos Community Action Program (XCAP), we wanted to work with an organization that’s located in our own backyard and is making a real difference in our local community. We’ve partnered with Ascencia, a local non-profit with a mission to lift people out of homelessness by providing many valuable services to help our unhoused neighbors.
Ascencia is our local neighbor here in Los Angeles, with headquarters directly across the street from ours on Tyburn Street. Since 2006, Ascencia has been helping lift families out of homelessness by providing essential resources such as medical and mental health support, housing, street outreach, case management, trauma therapy, financial literacy, and many more. Ascencia has 45 on-site beds that are available to individuals for 60 days, and families with young children for 120 days. In the fiscal year of 2020 to 2021, Ascencia served 961 men, women, and children, provided 456 hours of mental health support, and housed 73 families.
To kick off this partnership, we wanted to provide Ascencia with the supplies they were needing most. Our XCAP program held an internal food and hygiene goods drive to collect supplies to assemble hygiene kits and sandwiches. From there, we had a fun day of volunteering! Xosians got together to make over one hundred hygiene kits and assemble over one hundred peanut butter and jelly, turkey and ham sandwiches. We had enough food and supplies to fill up an entire stepvan!
Xos staff assembling peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for residents of Ascencia
"This quarter’s initiative focused on supporting our unhoused neighbors, which is something I’ve always been very passionate about. When we first started speaking with Ascencia, we asked them how we could support them best. They explained what they needed and we decided the best way we could have an impact is to put together a hygiene kit and lunch supply drive. It would allow us to have a little fun along the way in assembling bagged lunches for their lunch service and hygiene kits for their street outreach program." — Winter Fate Morvant, head of our Xos Community Action Program.
In addition to our internal food drive, we reached out to neighboring businesses to see if they wanted to participate in the initiative. The San Gabriel Elite Volleyball Club was kind enough to donate additional items for the hygiene kits we created.
We are incredibly grateful for another successful initiative, and couldn’t be happier that we were able to work with Ascencia. This initiative marks the kickoff of a larger partnership with Ascencia; we look forward to supporting them throughout the year with additional hygiene and food drives, along with donating more transportation services using our stepvan.
Xos’ Giordano Sordoni (L) and Christen Romero (R) helping unload coolers and supplies from an Xos stepvan
"The initiative was a huge success. The folks at Ascencia were so kind, appreciative, and excited about our partnership. Our friendship with our neighbors at Ascencia doesn’t end today; it’s only just begun and I’m so thankful for Xos for supporting this initiative and relationship". — Winter Fate Morvant, head of our Xos Community Action Program.
To learn more about Ascencia, visit their website.
Xos’ Ivan Goldensohn with Dr. Laura Duncan (R), Executive Director of Ascencia and staff
