Christmas Morning

Every year, Elliot and I volunteer together at the Original Pancake House in Bethesda on Christmas morning, which serves hot breakfast to the homeless. Elliot spends his time cooking, and I have taken charge of the “gift” table – we give out a bag of toiletries to every person who comes in, along with warm clothing – gloves, hats, jackets when we have them, sweaters, sweatshirts, thermal socks. Through lots of hard work, Elliot and I managed to get the toiletries together and bagged for over 400 people. I sit on the board of a youth group, and the board there really helped us gather some supplies, and one of the chapters bagged about 150 or more bags for us. Elliot managed to get a vendor to provide us with some extra toiletries that were unclaimed from FEMA, and my cousin, who works at a Marriott hotel, managed to get us 300 bars of soap and 300 shampoos. We also used cash to buy gloves, socks, and sweatshirts, and we got about 6 boxes of sweatshirts and jackets donated from a vendor. Here were all the goodies Elliot & I brought that morning:

We distributed EVERYTHING, and the recipients were so thankful. It was a fantastic way to spend our Christmas morning.