In 2020, the Union Rescue Mission turned its traditional ballroom gala into a celebrity-filled TV Special, Angels of Hope: Fighting Homelessness in the City of Angels. This switch of venue was caused by the pandemic, when URM broadcast from Comedian/ Actor Joel McHale’s garage in Studio City via a free satellite truck to KCAL 9 on a Saturday night in May. That event raised $1.8 million to fight homelessness and was viewed by 80,000 people. This led to CBS, who owns KCAL 9, offering URM 90 minutes on CBS 2 LA in 2021, and that TV Special was nominated for a local Emmy Award that year. Leap forward to 2023, and URM moved the production of this unique fundraising event to Radford Studio Center and the set of The Talk and in front of a live TV audience. It was broadcast on CBS 2LA and was viewed by nearly 250,000 people, and it raised $2.2 million to help fight homelessness in Los Angeles.
Natalie Morales and Joel McHale co-hosted URM’s Angels of Hope TV Special 2023. The show had musical performances by One Republic, Kelly Clarkson, Andy Grammar, Jewel and Phillip Phillips. In addition, there were numerous celebrity shoutouts for support from William Shatner, a 38-year donor to Union Rescue Mission, as well as all the following: Jane Seymour, Henry Winkler, Karamo Brown, Terry Crews, Cedric the Entertainer, Angela Bassett, Courtney Vance, and others.
The show was filled with four life-transformational stories of real-life individuals who turned their lives around at Union Rescue Mission and overcame issues like addiction, incarceration, homelessness and mental illness.
