300 Jewish Volunteers Bring City a Yule Gift : Religion: Visits to runaway shelter and AIDS patients mark Jewish Federation Council’s first annual Christmas Day of good works for Los Angeles.

More than 300 volunteers turned out Sunday to clean beaches, paint T-shirts with runaway youths in Hollywood, deliver food to AIDS patients and join in other activities in what was billed as the first annual Christmas Day of good works by the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles.

Taking note of the youngish character of the crowd, composed of many singles and young people, Rabbi Harvey Fields said the outpouring “put the lie to those who say the 25-to-40s don’t care about society.”

“As Jews give a kind of Christmas gift to the city we love, I feel a particular joy,” Fields said at the federation’s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters before the volunteers fanned out in car pools to their various assignments.

Zev Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles’ newest county supervisor, said: “Looking around the world today, we see so many people at each other’s throats. It is unusual when one community reaches out to another as we are today. We are in a sense filling a 24-hour void created by so many others celebrating the holiday.”

LA Works, a group that organizes such missions throughout the year on a nondenominational basis, helped the federation choose the activities. Calls to participate went out in the federation’s newsletters.

After a continental breakfast with bagels, team leaders set up car pools and went to their designated sites.

At the Los Angeles Youth Network’s emergency shelter for runaway youths on Gower Street in Hollywood, 16 federation volunteers were joined by members of a Jewish rock band and cast members from the television program “ER.”

When the band played, its lead singer, Paul Goldowitz, sang distinctly non-Christmas songs. Then everyone painted T-shirts and made jewelry. At the end, some of the youths staged their own dance numbers.

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David Shechter, the team leader, greeted the youths with a hearty “Merry Christmas from the Jewish Federation Council.”

“We’re here to celebrate their holiday,” Shechter said later. “That’s where I was coming from, but, of course, we’re secure in our own religion.”

Victor Pallares, the activities coordinator at the shelter, asked that the youths, most of whom are in their mid-teens, not be interviewed or identified by name to guard their privacy. He explained that many of the young people come from homes where they were abused and in some cases do not want their families to know where they are.

The shelter tries to keep the youths no longer than two months, either encouraging them to return home, if that is appropriate, or trying to find them more permanent shelter, the staff said.

As for the Christmas event, “you never know what this does,” said Joe Cislowski, another volunteer. “You walk away with a good feeling, and someday some good may come out of it.”

Volunteer Howard Schwimmer said knowing what was accomplished wasn’t necessary. “It’s a little too early to write off these kids,” he said, “and I just wanted to help.”

Another party of volunteers went to the Estelle Van Meter Multi Purpose Center on East 76th Street in South Los Angeles so they could paint it.

Volunteers also visited two AIDS hospices and landscaped a housing project, among other missions.