Tom Petty and Mudcrutch will play Midnight Mission benefit shows May 23 and 24

Tom Petty and his Mudcrutch band mates will get a head start on their upcoming U.S. reunion tour with a pair of shows next week in Northridge benefiting L.A.’s century-old Midnight Mission. Mudcrutch predates the Heartbreakers, dating from the early 1970s when all were playing bars and clubs in and around Gainesville, Fla.,

Mudcrutch will play Monday and Tuesday, May 23 and 24, in the relatively intimate surroundings of the Plaza del Sol theater at Cal State Northridge. The tour formally opens May 26 in Denver and will return to the Southland for stops June 25 and 26 at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood and June 28 at the Observatory in Santa Ana before concluding June 30 in San Diego.

“We are honored to have Mudcrutch involved in this event,” Midnight Mission Director of Public Affairs Georgia Berkovich told The Times this week. “The monetary part is beyond helpful, especially with giving being down across the board for charitable organizations. The awareness these events bring is harder to measure, but it’s also incredibly important.”

Midnight Mission was founded in 1914 to serve L.A.’s homeless population. Since 2012, Berkovich said, the organization has typically served more than 1 million meals a year, which she said is “the highest number we’ve seen since the Great Depression. Going over the 1 million mark was a significant tipping point.”

Because the organization takes no government funding, it relies on private and corporate donations, along with some grants, for its annual budget of $6 million to $7 million.

The Mudcrutch shows are labeled “From Northridge With Love” as part of a series of “…With Love” fundraisers spearheaded since 2007 by Norman Harris of Norm’s Rare Guitars in Tarzana. Other “With Love” benefits have taken place in Malibu and Hollywood.

When Mudcrutch reunited in 2007 for the first time since the band splintered in the mid-1970s, a split that would pave the way for the birth of the Heartbreakers here in Los Angeles, the group also played a tour-preparation benefit for Midnight Mission. Midnight Mission responded by bestowing its Golden Heart award on Petty.

Berkovich said Midnight Mission’s services are basically three-pronged: immediate subsistence to anyone in need; a healthy-living program for homeless people struggling with substance abuse; and a family-living facility for homeless families.

The goal of all the programs, she said, “is providing people with the tools they need to be self-sufficient when they leave.

“Midnight Mission was started by a lay minister who did preach to our homeless community, but in the ‘30s we became nondenominational,” Berkovich said. “So although the word ‘mission’ is still in our name, we welcome any man, woman or child, regardless of age or religion — none of that matters. I love that about what we do.

“We help anyone who needs help, no questions asked,” she said. “And if we can’t help them, we refer them someplace where they can get the help they need.”

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