WASHINGTON — On Sunday, thousands of volunteers were expected to turn out across the Washington, D.C. area and give back to the community.
This was the third year the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington has held the “Good Deeds Day” event.
“We have over 60 projects that are happening around the community in D.C., Maryland and Virginia,” says Sarah Sicherman, assistant director of marketing with the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. “We’re expecting six-thousand volunteers which we are really excited about.” That number, Sicherman says, is twice the number of volunteers who turned out last year.
Some of those projects took place at the Jewish Community Center of Great Washington in Northwest, D.C. Volunteers made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to be given to the homeless. They also passed out kits for the homeless that contained wet ones, sunscreen and lip balm.
Also at the center, volunteers wrote letters to be sent to soldiers, and volunteers made crafts that will go to children at the National Institutes of Health.
Sicherman says Good Deeds Day “started in Israel a few years back and has become an international day of doing good.” Outside of Israel, the Greater Washington community is the biggest one participating in “Good Deeds Day,” Sicherman says.
Amie Perl, of Adams Morgan, was at the D.C. Jewish Community Center Sunday morning with her husband and three kids.
Says Perl: “We are here to help people who are needy than we are (and) to teach my kids the importance of doing that.”
Follow @WTOP on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook.
