DETROIT (WXYZ) — Hundreds of Jewish volunteers spent Christmas Day at service sites throughout Detroit, handing out gifts, preparing meals and delivering holiday cheer as part of Mitzvah Day — an annual tradition that allows nonprofit staff to enjoy Christmas with their families while ensuring critical services continue.
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Inside the Cass Community Social Services kitchen, volunteers took on various roles to prepare free meals for hundreds of Detroiters.
"I'm squishing up all the yolk to add the mayonnaise and the relish," said Reverend Sue Pethoud, Church and Community Relations Liaison for Cass Community Social Services.
Jason Plotkin, Executive Director of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, worked alongside his wife preparing mashed potatoes despite cooking being outside his comfort zone.
"I'm not one in the kitchen, but happy to help out where I can," Plotkin said. "In Judaism, our holiday Hanukkah has passed, so we're trying to make a difference in the community today."
Temple Israel was one of several Jewish organizations in metro Detroit participating in Mitzvah Day on Thursday.
"Anything we can do to help our neighbors, mitzvot is a good deed, we're trying to repair the world," Plotkin said.
Mitzvah Day has been a decades-long tradition in Detroit's Jewish community. David Kurzmann, Senior Director of Community Affairs for the Jewish Federation of Detroit, remembers participating as a child.
"I would deliver gifts with my parents, now to see generations, now younger, participating, this is a decades long Jewish community tradition," Kurzmann said.
Before volunteering at Cass, Kurzmann spent the morning at Jimmy's Kids, where "hundreds of volunteers delivered gifts to a neighborhood in Southwest Detroit."
Pethoud, who has helped organize Mitzvah Days for several years, said the volunteer support is invaluable.
"It's a great thing, lets us have a minimal kitchen staff for the weekend," Pethoud said.
She noted that no one appreciates the effort more than the hundreds receiving free Christmas meals, who are "just overjoyed to experience the holiday like everybody else."
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