Mission Marks 100 Years

The oldest mission in Los Angeles celebrated its 100th birthday Wednesday, doing what it does every day: serving food to the homeless and needy.

But this time, the hundreds who gathered in the Union Rescue Mission’s parking lot for lunch also got to eat a 4-foot chocolate cake and watch stuntman Bob Yerkes make a “congratulatory” jump off the third floor roof of the mission on South Main Street. Two years after its opening in 1891, officials say, the nondenominational Protestant service was helping 500 people a day.

Now the mission serves 2,800 meals to men, women and children daily and provides shelter for 832 homeless men. Mission President George Caywood said the homeless problem continues to grow, along with what he sees as a hardened public attitude.

“It’s scary to me people have become adjusted to seeing men on the streets,” he said. “I think it does bad things to us ethically and emotionally. If we also get used to seeing women and children, what does that say about us as a nation?”