Washington, DC: As part of President Barack Hussein Obama's National Day of Service and upon his request, the Pakistani American Leadership Center (PAL-C) hosted and organized a community service event drawing in over 80 volunteers (including former US Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlin) to renovate and beautify the largest homeless shelter not just in Washington DC but the entire nation -- the
Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV)
Volunteers from every part of America, from California to New York, joined PAL-C in this volunteer effort and truly represented, as President Barack Obama noted in his Inaugural Address, that as Americans our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.
Pakistani-American volunteers worked side-by-side with Indian-American volunteers working side-by-side with Caucasian-American volunteers working side by side with African-American volunteers. We had volunteers who worked on the Obama campaign and volunteers who worked on the McCain campaign. We had Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Jews, single college students and entire families, children and distinguished elderly, all driven by the same goal: the desire to lend a helping hand to those in need and to give back to the community and forge a new America.
As President Barack Obama said during his own service at another homeless shelter in Washington DC quoting Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: "Everybody can be great because everybody can serve."
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