On Friday December 4, over 50 people gathered around the celebration table in Hesed Polina. The large and untied family of our volunteers is our pride and the basis of our community.

The holiday was opened by Volunteer Galina Lipker with such words, "Selfless volunteers, altruists exist now and always existed. You may ask why. Community work is one of the ways of self-fulfillment, which is a natural need of any person. There is not only the need of those who get free soup but there is also the need to give out this soup, that is the need to be useful to society. It may seem strange but neither work nor family fully satisfies this need of self-fulfillment. People sometimes act in favor of other people without any profit to themselves or receiving gratitude."

Volunteer Performing group Sovlanut sang a song to congratulate everybody "Please come to volunteers with your problem…" These talented volunteers write poems for each holiday, write scripts. Without their witty creations, no holiday is conducted. They are the pride of our community as all other volunteers.

Hesed Director Inessa Chugainova thanked the volunteers for their work, skills, and kind attitude to the community. She said affectionately, "You give to the community not only your work but also your heart, time, and sometime your health. Please accept my sincere gratitude. There is an ancient saying "The world exists by the Torah and by the kind deeds". Let me name everybody who we are proud of." Inessa Chugainova read out numerous meritocracy awards to volunteers of all departments of Hesed the Jewish Community Center. The community thanked the volunteers - doctors, chefs, tailors, security guards, plumbers, librarians, and those who compile and disseminate food packages, call clients, create poems and draw pictures, work with children and elderly people.

Every name was met with applause but the audience merely exploded when the name of Ideya Panova was pronounced. Not all staff members are personally known to community members but it is hard to find a person in the community who is not acquainted with Ideya Iosifovna. Volunteer Ideya Panova has been working in Hesed Polina for many years and we cannot imagine the Nutrition Program and dissemination of food packages among clients without her.

Volunteer Day coincided with one of the most important Jewish holidays - Shabbat. After Shabbat candles were lit up and blessing of the bread and vine was read, the holiday dinner began, which was cooked by volunteers.

Volunteer Program Director is Inna Yenina. She is currently in Israel on vacation. Even in her absence the unified team of 225 people does not stop working even for a single day.

At the end, Galina Lipker quoted words of a specialist on Judaism, "The virtue of helping the poor is considered the most important and largest mitzvah in Torah. The true altruism is the commitment of Creator to transfer his perfection to his creatures, i.e. to us people."

Volunteer Galina Lipker