JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
On an icy, 18-degree December Sunday in Washington, D.C., at the Edlavitch Jewish Community Center, a group of volunteers have braved the cold to meet inside an auditorium. They are here to help prepare for one of the JCC's biggest volunteer events, D25. It's their annual Christmas Day of Service.
MIRA SMITH: Awesome. Come on in. You all here for gift wrapping?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes.
SMITH: Come on in. Perfect. I knew we had a big group coming. Welcome. We're just getting started.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
So we thought it was a good place to go for today's installment of our series focused on volunteerism called Here to Help.
SMITH: So we are making 50 male gifts, 50 female gifts. And each gift includes socks.
SUMMERS: Mira Smith runs the volunteer programs. She welcomes the volunteers and explains that they will be assembling the gift bags. On Christmas Day, hundreds of volunteers fan out to social service agencies across the D.C. metro area, delivering 1,300 gifts for children and adults. The Day of Service has been a tradition at the Jewish Community Center since 1986.
SMITH: We're also going to be going to St. Elizabeths Hospital.
CHANG: And while this was started by a group of young Jews at the center, now people of all faiths take part in it.
AMANDA SHULAK: I was actually raised Catholic. My husband is Jewish. But I think that the thing that really binds both of them is a culture of service.
SUMMERS: D.C. area resident Amanda Shulak is here with her husband and their two young children. They all took part in the center's Thanksgiving volunteer event and will be helping out on Christmas Day. Shulak says her interfaith family is rooted in service to others.
SHULAK: I have really enjoyed that that is a part of our faiths, the Jewish faith and the Catholic faith, that we share. And especially in our community here, it's very aligned with our values and how we're trying to raise our children.
CHANG: At a long table near the door, Tamara Goldschmidt (ph) is nearly up to her elbows in a box full of gifts. Clear cellophane gift bags are laid out on the table, ready to fill and decorate with holiday stickers.
TAMARA GOLDSCHMIDT: I know. I am really impressed. This is a factory.
SUMMERS: Goldschmidt didn't even come to volunteer. She came to visit a friend who works here. On December 25, she'll be in Miami visiting family, but says the event has inspired her.
GOLDSCHMIDT: If I'm honest, I think that this has motivated me because I am Jewish. And I will be there to look for something like this there to do on Christmas.
CHANG: And you can find more stories of volunteerism in America at npr.org/heretohelp.
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