Community Spotlight: Reverend Kathy Cooper-Ledesma

Rev. Kathy Cooper Ledesma has been a transformative figure in our Hollywood 4WRD community, dating back even before she became Co-Senior Pastor of Hollywood United Methodist Church in 2006. Prior to this role, she spent nine years as the Southern California Director of the California Council ofChurches while also serving as Associate Pastor at HUMC.

One of the significant challenges Rev. Kathy took on early in her tenure was the issue of marriage equality, both in civil society and within the denomination. In this struggle, Rev Kathy prioritized caring for her congregants over the church's institutional stance, showcasing her commitment to inclusivity and justice. She is proud that her congregation played a role in the fight overturn Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriages which was later overturned by the courts. While marriage equality became federal law in 2015, it did not become “legal” in the United Methodist denomination until May 2024.

Another pressing issue Rev. Kathy has tackled throughout her years of service has been tending to the needs of the hungry and unhoused. When HUMC’s Tuesday morning lunch program was forced to shut down during the Pandemic, she innovated by incubating and helping Hollywood Food Coalition to launch their Community Exchange Program. This initiative, along with partnerships with other agencies, led to the creation of the church’s "blessing bags" containing water, toiletries, and snacks for those in need.

Rev. Kathy's leadership extended beyond her congregation as she collaborated with Kerry Morrison and other Hollywood business interests in the early 2000s to coordinate efforts to address homelessness within the faith community. This collaboration eventually led to the creation of Hollywood 4WRD, whose coalition of service providers, business interests, elected officials and faith-based leaders Rev. Kathy helped shape as a founding member. She remembers one early success with a member of the “Group of 14” (a list of 14 unhoused Hollywood residents H4WRD’s members would gather to help each week), for whom H4WRD successfully advocated for their conservation and support. Rev. Kathy’s advocacy efforts also led her to serve on the Mental Health Commission, where she first met H4WRD's future Executive Director, Brittney Weissman.

As Rev. Kathy prepares to step down from her role at HUMC, she hopes that H4WRD will grow even more intentional about including the faith community in all efforts to end and prevent homelessness in Greater Hollywood. Despite their theological differences, Rev. Kathy knows that the diverse congregations like those at HUMC, First PresbyterianChurch of Hollywood (FPCH), Mosaic,and Reality LA still have much more in common than not.

Her hope is that at least part of her legacy with H4WRD will be the knitting together of the faith-based organizations in Hollywood and further encouragement of them to step up and contribute to the common cause that, as Rev. Kathy says, “unites us all in our service to the least and the lost."