Dec 24, 2004  |  By: YUSEF NAJAFI  | COMMENTS     

WHAT WOULD IT take to get you to work on Christmas? More money or, perhaps, some other form of payment?

This Friday, Dec. 24, and Saturday, Dec. 25, 31 gay men and lesbians affiliated with Burgundy Crescent Volunteers (BCV), a group that provides free assistance for gay and gay-friendly non-profit organizations in metropolitan Washington, D.C., have signed up to help people they don’t know well.

In return, they ask for nothing.

“They’re willing to work hard that day and, normally, that should be a day that people can take vacation and relax,” says Jonathan Blumenthal, who co-founded Burgundy Crescent Volunteers with his partner, Eric Cohen, and their friend Angie Hunt in 2001. “So it says a lot about them. It shows that they are very giving people and have a sense of community spirit.”

The two organizations the volunteers are assisting this year are Green Door, a nonprofit organization in Northwest D.C., founded in 1976 to help people living with mental disabilities; and Charlie’s Place, an outreach ministry at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, in Northwest, D.C., which provides services for people who have no place to live.

“There is so much stigma attached to mental illness in the mainstream community,” says Maureen Jais-Mick, director of development at Green Door, which is holding its annual Christmas dinner on Dec. 25. “The volunteers that are coming from BCV just see past that and see people as people. Maybe that has to do with being gay.”

Twenty-five Burgundy Crescent members, among others, are scheduled to volunteer to help serve food that day to 150 people.

On the fourth Friday of each month, Burgundy Crescent volunteers help serve breakfast for clients at Charlie’s Place at 6 a.m. This month, that day falls on Christmas Eve.

Jon Bolduc, the director and a social worker at Charlie’s Place, is expecting a big turnout for the breakfast there on Dec. 24.

“We get a mix of people,” he says, “we have young people in their early 20s and old people in their 60s, so it’s quite a range.”

Volunteers from Burgundy Crescent involved in this effort include:

Sara Witherow
This 42-year-old lesbian, who is “happily” single, works as a network analyst for Arlington County School Systems in Virginia.

“It’s much more fun to volunteer with a group of people, because it becomes a social event and a way to help the community,” she says.

Witherow plans to celebrate Christmas Eve with various lesbians in the area who don’t have holiday plans. She lives in Annandale, Va., and is involved in an online group called SocialFriends, which is comprised of about 250 lesbians throughout the metropolitan area. A couple from the group has organized a party for its members.

“My family lives in Warrenton,” she says. “They are ultra-conservative Christians so, for me, my lesbian friends in the community are my extended family. So I wanted to find an opportunity to spend time with them.”

Witherow says she was featured in the Washington Post five years ago, after placing an ad in the Blade and holding a holiday-themed open house for lesbians. Her actions partly were inspired by her family’s disapproval of her sexual orientation.

“But also it has to do with the way I was raised,” she says of her work as a volunteer. “My religious upbringing has been a blessing. I also worked for the Peace Corps and seeing how spoiled we are just made me want to give back to the community, specifically the gay community since I am a part of it.”

Michael Wagoner
Wagoner began volunteering to help others because he wanted to meet more people.

“And I was also trying to find something good to do with myself,” he says.

A friend referred the 43-year-old Dupont Circle resident to Burgundy Crescent Volunteers and the group has helped him meet a wide range of friends during the seven years he’s lived in D.C.

“Every time you go to volunteer you meet somebody new,” he says.

Wagoner, who works as a software designer in Rosslyn, Va., says volunteering during the holiday season is enjoyable on several levels.

“I guess the holidays are just a special time of year that you want to give more,” he says, “and ...