For many years, Jews have been performing mitzvot for Christians during the Christmas holiday. Perhaps the longest running of these projects is the Christmas Mitzvah Project organized by The Temple, Congregation B’nai Jehudah.
This is the 26th year for the project and it has been organized each and every one of those years by Suzanne Gladney, who is an immigration attorney for the Migrant Farmworkers Project. While she is the top dog, she said it takes many people for it to succeed every year. For two full days, and sometimes more depending on the year, volunteers take over running the two area Ronald McDonald Houses located near Children’s Mercy Hospital downtown. Ronald McDonald Houses provide a “home away from home” for families who don’t live close to the hospital, generally more than 40 miles away. These families are given a place to sleep, meals and snacks. This allows the RMH staff and regular volunteers to have time to be with their families on Christmas.
The idea of planning a mitzvah project at Christmastime came to Gladney after she attended an event sponsored by the Religious Action Center about 28 years ago. At the time she was chair of B’nai Jehduah’s social action committee.
“Everybody was gung ho about it,” she said.
Many congregations across the country were working with hospitals, so Gladney originally made arrangements with Menorah Medical Center to provide volunteers on Christmas. At the time it was located on Rockhill Road where the Stowers Institute is now. But it didn’t work well because volunteers simply can’t replace essential hospital personnel on a holiday.
“People felt like they were just sitting around and not really helping,” Gladney said.
So she went back to the drawing board and someone suggested they try Ronald McDonald House. The idea was well received and Gladney said RMH staffers told her that “if volunteers are willing to come to training, there’s not that much that couldn’t be fixed once the staff gets back.”
Over the years this partnership has worked well. RMH uses volunteers on a regular basis, so those volunteers — in addition to staff — are replaced for Christmas by the Jewish crew. They do everything from answering the phone to making and serving meals to washing linens and anything and everything else that needs to be done.
“They have about 200 volunteers a year that staff the houses,” Gladney explained. “We replace the staff and we have back-up staff people available by phone in case anything goes wrong. It’s a good fit.”
Holly Buckendahl, CEO/executive director of Ronald McDonald House Charities-Kansas City, agreed.
“The Christmas Mitzvah Project is an amazing gift of time and talent for families and staff at Ronald McDonald House Charities of Kansas City. For 26 years our partnership has ensured that families’ needs are met while their child bravely battles life-threatening illness during the holiday season. When life unravels, RMHC-KC provides sources of strength, hope and healing. Our mission would not be possible if it weren’t for supporters like this Christmas Mitzvah Project,” Buckendahl said.
Rabbi Jonathan Rudnick and two of his children will volunteer this year for the third time. He said “as a family who has received warm care and hospitality from RMH in the past,” he was happy to learn of the project and be able to give back to an organization that helped him. Now a seasoned Christmas Mitzvah Project volunteer, he is impressed with how well RMH trains its volunteers.
“It’s very well organized so you feel like you can deal with anything that comes up,” Rabbi Rudnick said.
The volunteer training indeed pays off. Gladney remembers one year when Gloria and Alvin Fry were working a shift (they were regular volunteers for many years) a water pipe broke. Instead of panicking and simply calling a staff member, the pair cleaned up the mess and called the plumber on call (also a volunteer.) When everything was all repaired, they then placed the call, informing the staffer about the incident and reporting it was all taken care of.
“A lot of what you do is common sense,” Gladney said. “It’s stuff we are all capable and competent to do and once you have the training you can take care of it.”
“It is really a place where you can give staff time with their families at Christmastime and you can say, ‘I got that done. I did it.’ ”
Stan Stern, a teacher of gifted education at Shawnee Mission South High School, has been involved with the project because he “feels like I’m helping in some small way.” While he’s at RMH he has seen firsthand how generous people in the community are and is very impressed by it.
“People will just walk in with gifts and presents for the kids and food and all kinds of things. One year there was a present dropped off for every single child that was there. Things like that happen all the time and I think that’s really cool,” Stern said.
Many Christmas Mitzvah Project volunteers give more than their time to this project. The project is responsible for evening meals on both Christmas Eve and Christmas at both of the houses and these volunteers purchase and prepare all the food. One of those who has been doing this for 25 of the 26 years is Lynn Murray and her husband, Richard Gilman.
Murray, who is often assisted by friends in this endeavor, plans on serving Moroccan chicken on Christmas Eve. Through the years menus have included spaghetti, lasagna and baked chicken.
“If it’s been Chanukah we’ve often served brisket,” Murray said.
The Murray-Gilman family arrives on the afternoon of Christmas Eve and prepares to serve the evening meal. They stay the night and leave the next day, so other volunteers actually serve the Christmas dinner they prepare. Often it’s a honey-baked ham and turkey breast.
“Even though we don’t eat it, I think it’s a little special for Christmas and then we’ll make all the sides such as potatoes, green beans and pies,” she said.
Generally Murray said they are asked to prepare food for 40 people, plus whoever is in the volunteer group. Some years the group staying in the house is very small because the hospital tries to send as many kids home for the holiday as possible. Other years the group is quite large, but they never know exactly how many they will serve.
Murray said she and her husband, both dentists, chose to volunteer originally because they wanted to teach their two children the value of helping someone else out at a holiday that was very important to their religion.
“I compare it to Jewish people shouldn’t be working on Yom Kippur and Christian people should not work on their holiday,” Murray said.
Their children, now adults, still volunteer with the project. When the Murray-Gilmans missed it one year, the children told them it was too important to miss and they never have again. They even have two nieces from Chicago who almost always visit during that time and volunteer. One is traveling here this Christmas just to help.
The Murray-Gilman family always spends the night at RMH. Most of the time it has been uneventful.
“One year I think I was up every hour on the hour because the Elves of Christmas Present came, and other groups came to drop off gifts,” Murray said.
Murray and Gladney both said they love RMH because it is such a worthy organization.
“I love Ronald McDonald House because it brings such a relief to families whose children are in the hospital. They do such a wonderful job of creating a really nice home away from home for these families,” Murray said.
Murray praised Gladney’s dedication to the project.
“Suzanne is the organizer and she steps in if somebody at the last minute can’t be there. She and her husband (Alan Lubert) are really, really the driving force behind this. I think that’s the reason it’s gone on for so long, she’s really good,” Murray said.
When the project provides volunteers for two days — sometimes they even do three — Gladney said generally they need about 25 teams of volunteers. Some are singles, some are husbands and wives and some are complete families. When the new house is complete next year, more volunteers will be needed. Filling those slots probably won’t be a problem.
“People love it. People call me starting in June and I’m not ready to start taking names yet. I tell them I’ll call them later.”
Many, many people have done this project over and over and over. The names are just too numerous to mention. Over the years it has attracted volunteers from the entire Jewish community, not just B’nai Jehudah.
Through volunteering at RMH, Gladney said she and others have learned to give thanks for what they have.
“If you are there with your kids who are healthy, you can feel extremely grateful that you are not in their situation and you are able to help them.”
Gladney loves working with this project every year.
“I love Ronald McDonald House. I love the mission. I think that it’s a really important place for people to have who are going through this kind of crisis with their child. It’s great to have a place that can be your home away from home and where you can be around other families who are going through other situations and who understand what’s happening with you.”
