Yrys
Army.ca Veteran
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I'm not sure if it's the right board...
No Shortage of Strangers for a Good Cause
Scores Respond to Listing to Share a Different Kind of Christmas
In Craigslist's random ocean of housing swaps, motorcycles for sale and vegan
discussion forums, a tiny tide began a few days ago with these words:
"Want to volunteer with me on Christmas in D.C.?"
With that, Sally Smith, a 27-year-old Texan who this year for the first time
couldn't afford to go home for the holidays, found herself unexpectedly
commanding a little holiday army of do-gooders.
An African immigrant and his family. A young veteran. A couple on a date.
By the time they converged in the lobby of the Veterans Affairs Medical
Center near Catholic University in Northwest Washington at 10 a.m. yesterday,
there were nearly 70 people, shocking the Santa-outfitted coordinator who
organizes volunteers on Christmas.
"Usually, I'm lucky to get eight or 10 people," Rich Landon said.
The story of Smith's group is one of a volatile economy, a shaken-up political
climate and a culture in which people sometimes feel more comfortable with
the anonymity of the Internet than with the church soup kitchen next door.
Their backgrounds were wide-ranging, but the reasons people joined Smith's
volunteer project -- which included six events Christmas Eve and yesterday --
were variations on the same theme: Something feels different this year.
"It's been a hard year in general for everyone, and a couple of weeks ago,
I just thought volunteering seemed like a good way to spend Christmas,"
said Shreya Patel, 33, who works in information technology with the Internal
Revenue Service. Three days earlier, Patel had found Smith on Craigslist and
decided to break with her tradition of staying home with her family.
"They're like, 'You're going where? To some hospital? You met this girl on
Craigslist? You're taking a friend with you, right?' " the Rockville woman said,
chuckling.
The group included those who rarely volunteer as well as those who do so
weekly. But most said they had never volunteered on Christmas. "This year,
I wanted to do something radical," said Olu Olunuga, who brought his wife
and two children, 13 and 10, from Silver Spring to meet the group at a Columbia
Heights Starbucks to sign cards for veterans before heading to the hospital.
Olunuga said he had been wanting to encourage his children to focus on others.
This year, he decided, there would be no gift-giving and they would volunteer
instead of eating and having friends over on Christmas.
"Over the years, they just get and get. I asked them, 'Do you want anything you
don't have?' " he said. Saying that 13 and 10 were good ages to start, Olunuga
went to Google a few days ago and typed: "Christmas" "volunteer" and "Washington."
Smith's post popped up as one of the few options.The visiting, carol-singing and gift-
giving at the medical center followed two projects Christmas Eve: one at the
Washington Home long-term care center and hospice in Tenleytown, and another
on the streets near the U.S. Capitol, where volunteers gave bags of warm clothes
and blankets to homeless people.
Smith also organized a dinner Wednesday night in Penn Quarter as well as the card-
signing at Starbucks yesterday morning and a visit late yesterday afternoon at
Washington Hospital Center, which is across the street from the VA center.
Yesterday began with a near-empty Starbucks -- until about 8:54 a.m., when Moo
Eiselstein, 30, an Army vet who sells truck parts, walked in and saw Smith, a bubbly
marketing manager from Capitol Hill who volunteers often but had never used the
"volunteer" section of Craigslist before this month.
"Is this the volunteer group?" said Eiselstein, who has been volunteering a lot since
he was approached at a convenience store in the fall by a prostitute seeking help,
an experience that he said changed his life. He attends church, but Eiselstein said
church volunteer groups typically repeat the same activities with the same faces --
an issue multiple people raised yesterday.
"It's a way to meet people, with no tight cliques already formed," LaShonda Sherman,
a sixth-grade science teacher, said of the Craigslist approach. Eiselstein nodded.
"If you go to a more organized thing, you have to go through hoops, like [required]
committee meetings," he said. By 9:25 a.m., 30 people were at the Starbucks, signing
cards for the veterans. "Merry Christmas and thank you for your service to our country.
Oki," read one. "Merry Christmas, God bless you. Tope," read another.
Meagan Seitz-Smith, 25, said she was trying to save money for a longer trip home to
Connecticut. "I figured, I can find furniture and my apartment on Craigslist, why not
volunteering?"
By 10:15 a.m., Landon, a coordinator for the nonprofit group the Holiday Project, which
connects volunteers to projects, was in the medical center lobby, sweating in his Santa
suit as he tried to quickly organize dozens of people.
There were people with wheelbarrows of gifts, a reindeer with a guitar, and a center
official shouting that people shouldn't be alarmed by a 101-year-old female veteran
"who likes to tell dirty jokes." Then it was up the elevator, in waves, and onto the
Community Living Center floor. Every room held a story, including that of an
80-year-old engineer who had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point
and served in the Army Corps of Engineers but could not remember basic details
of his life.
"Here's a card, sir," said Mauro Mujica-Parodi, 26, a former Marine who delivered
a card signed by the group at the Starbucks. "Can I look at it?" the man asked.
"Yes, sir," Mujica-Parodi said as the man opened it. "Oh! A lot of people. Do I
know any of them?" "No, sir," the younger veteran said deferentially.
In the next room was Eiselstein, who was a military police officer for five years at
Fort Hood in Texas, and Angelo Macaluso, an 87-year-old who fought in a key World
War II battle at Anzio Beach, Italy. "I thank God another Christmas I'm here!"
Macaluso said, standing and saluting as his son teared up next to the bathroom.
"A lot of my colleagues didn't come back."
By 4:30 p.m., Smith was exhausted. Eighty-four people had showed up at Washington
Hospital Center, where the two-day volunteering extravaganza ended with a rousing
round of "Silent Night" in the intensive care unit.
The project had started with a rush of anonymity, but it didn't end that way, she said:
"They're all coming to my New Year's Eve party."
No Shortage of Strangers for a Good Cause
Scores Respond to Listing to Share a Different Kind of Christmas
In Craigslist's random ocean of housing swaps, motorcycles for sale and vegan
discussion forums, a tiny tide began a few days ago with these words:
"Want to volunteer with me on Christmas in D.C.?"
With that, Sally Smith, a 27-year-old Texan who this year for the first time
couldn't afford to go home for the holidays, found herself unexpectedly
commanding a little holiday army of do-gooders.
An African immigrant and his family. A young veteran. A couple on a date.
By the time they converged in the lobby of the Veterans Affairs Medical
Center near Catholic University in Northwest Washington at 10 a.m. yesterday,
there were nearly 70 people, shocking the Santa-outfitted coordinator who
organizes volunteers on Christmas.
"Usually, I'm lucky to get eight or 10 people," Rich Landon said.
The story of Smith's group is one of a volatile economy, a shaken-up political
climate and a culture in which people sometimes feel more comfortable with
the anonymity of the Internet than with the church soup kitchen next door.
Their backgrounds were wide-ranging, but the reasons people joined Smith's
volunteer project -- which included six events Christmas Eve and yesterday --
were variations on the same theme: Something feels different this year.
"It's been a hard year in general for everyone, and a couple of weeks ago,
I just thought volunteering seemed like a good way to spend Christmas,"
said Shreya Patel, 33, who works in information technology with the Internal
Revenue Service. Three days earlier, Patel had found Smith on Craigslist and
decided to break with her tradition of staying home with her family.
"They're like, 'You're going where? To some hospital? You met this girl on
Craigslist? You're taking a friend with you, right?' " the Rockville woman said,
chuckling.
The group included those who rarely volunteer as well as those who do so
weekly. But most said they had never volunteered on Christmas. "This year,
I wanted to do something radical," said Olu Olunuga, who brought his wife
and two children, 13 and 10, from Silver Spring to meet the group at a Columbia
Heights Starbucks to sign cards for veterans before heading to the hospital.
Olunuga said he had been wanting to encourage his children to focus on others.
This year, he decided, there would be no gift-giving and they would volunteer
instead of eating and having friends over on Christmas.
"Over the years, they just get and get. I asked them, 'Do you want anything you
don't have?' " he said. Saying that 13 and 10 were good ages to start, Olunuga
went to Google a few days ago and typed: "Christmas" "volunteer" and "Washington."
Smith's post popped up as one of the few options.The visiting, carol-singing and gift-
giving at the medical center followed two projects Christmas Eve: one at the
Washington Home long-term care center and hospice in Tenleytown, and another
on the streets near the U.S. Capitol, where volunteers gave bags of warm clothes
and blankets to homeless people.
Smith also organized a dinner Wednesday night in Penn Quarter as well as the card-
signing at Starbucks yesterday morning and a visit late yesterday afternoon at
Washington Hospital Center, which is across the street from the VA center.
Yesterday began with a near-empty Starbucks -- until about 8:54 a.m., when Moo
Eiselstein, 30, an Army vet who sells truck parts, walked in and saw Smith, a bubbly
marketing manager from Capitol Hill who volunteers often but had never used the
"volunteer" section of Craigslist before this month.
"Is this the volunteer group?" said Eiselstein, who has been volunteering a lot since
he was approached at a convenience store in the fall by a prostitute seeking help,
an experience that he said changed his life. He attends church, but Eiselstein said
church volunteer groups typically repeat the same activities with the same faces --
an issue multiple people raised yesterday.
"It's a way to meet people, with no tight cliques already formed," LaShonda Sherman,
a sixth-grade science teacher, said of the Craigslist approach. Eiselstein nodded.
"If you go to a more organized thing, you have to go through hoops, like [required]
committee meetings," he said. By 9:25 a.m., 30 people were at the Starbucks, signing
cards for the veterans. "Merry Christmas and thank you for your service to our country.
Oki," read one. "Merry Christmas, God bless you. Tope," read another.
Meagan Seitz-Smith, 25, said she was trying to save money for a longer trip home to
Connecticut. "I figured, I can find furniture and my apartment on Craigslist, why not
volunteering?"
By 10:15 a.m., Landon, a coordinator for the nonprofit group the Holiday Project, which
connects volunteers to projects, was in the medical center lobby, sweating in his Santa
suit as he tried to quickly organize dozens of people.
There were people with wheelbarrows of gifts, a reindeer with a guitar, and a center
official shouting that people shouldn't be alarmed by a 101-year-old female veteran
"who likes to tell dirty jokes." Then it was up the elevator, in waves, and onto the
Community Living Center floor. Every room held a story, including that of an
80-year-old engineer who had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point
and served in the Army Corps of Engineers but could not remember basic details
of his life.
"Here's a card, sir," said Mauro Mujica-Parodi, 26, a former Marine who delivered
a card signed by the group at the Starbucks. "Can I look at it?" the man asked.
"Yes, sir," Mujica-Parodi said as the man opened it. "Oh! A lot of people. Do I
know any of them?" "No, sir," the younger veteran said deferentially.
In the next room was Eiselstein, who was a military police officer for five years at
Fort Hood in Texas, and Angelo Macaluso, an 87-year-old who fought in a key World
War II battle at Anzio Beach, Italy. "I thank God another Christmas I'm here!"
Macaluso said, standing and saluting as his son teared up next to the bathroom.
"A lot of my colleagues didn't come back."
By 4:30 p.m., Smith was exhausted. Eighty-four people had showed up at Washington
Hospital Center, where the two-day volunteering extravaganza ended with a rousing
round of "Silent Night" in the intensive care unit.
The project had started with a rush of anonymity, but it didn't end that way, she said:
"They're all coming to my New Year's Eve party."
