By 11:30 a.m. on a recent Saturday, a line of people is snaking around the interior of the meeting room at the Episcopal Church of St. Martin in Davis.

Some of them look like they’ve seen better days, that perhaps they slept outside last night. Others look like the mother or father, grandma or grandpa of any Davis kid.

All are here waiting for a free hot meal: spaghetti, salad, vegetables, an array of breads and desserts, all arranged on tables at the front of the room.

Karen Ashby is standing ready to ladle out the spaghetti. Amanda Nazario will take care of serving the green salad and Jessica Yeung is in charge of the dessert. Ashby, Nazario and Yeung are among the moms and daughters of the local chapter of the National Charity League, an organization that brings an added feature to traditional community service: an opportunity to strengthen the bonds between moms and daughters.

In joining the league, the mothers and their daughters — the latter of whom are in seventh through 12th grades — commit to providing a certain number of volunteer hours every year. They assist at Special Olympics events, harvest food for the poor, provide companionship for seniors in the community and more. And here at St. Martin’s on a Saturday morning, nearly a dozen of them have been assisting Davis Community Meals in preparing the weekly lunch served to anyone in the community who’s interested.

The league members arrived early, in time to prepare food, set tables and do anything else that needs doing. Once the meal is over, they’ll still be here, cleaning up and leaving the church facilities just like they found them.

In between, they serve.

At one point, Ali Gosende stood to the side of the room, a pause between tasks, and watched her daughter, Savannah, serving food.

“Watching her, it makes me feel privileged,” Gosende said. “This is the reason we joined NCL … would we have done this on our own? I don’t know if we would. (And) I want her to get from this that it isn’t just homeless people here, it’s all walks of life. This community meal is for everyone.”

Meanwhile, as Gosende and other moms and daughters worked at St. Martin’s, another group of league members was busy over at the Davis Senior Center, providing companionship to seniors while those seniors’ caregivers got a little time to themselves. The newest crop of league members — current seventh-graders and their moms — were volunteering for Time Off for Caregivers, engaging in spirited games of hangman and other activities with seniors there.

Providing this community service, says league mom Tracy Dewit, benefits these girls in so many ways.

Her own daughter, ninth-grader Abbie, she said, has developed more empathy, “more understanding of who’s in a community.”

“It’s not always what she expects,” Dewit noted. “And it helps her realize that she has a role and impact. When you’re able to help out, it gives you a sense of appreciation for the basic things in life.”

National Charity League also provides its young members with valuable life skills — how to run a meeting (something the girls do monthly on their own) as well as how to structure and put on events.

Dewit knows of a recent league graduate who went off to college and had mastered enough skills that she was able to organize and put on a race benefiting a friend with cancer.

“It’s hard to do something like that,” Dewit said.

And it just feels good, says Jessica Yeung, 14, who adds that she loves being part of an organization that not only makes it possible to serve the community, but actually quite easy.

Yeung and her mom, Manda, had arrived at St. Martin’s at 9 a.m.

“A group of us set up and another group was back in the kitchen where the food preparation occurs,” Manda Yeung said.

The Yeungs have been participating with NCL since February. In addition to helping with Davis Community Meals, they and other National Charity League members have baked desserts for Citizens who Care, assisted with a Special Olympics bowling event, volunteered with Village Harvest, worked at the crab feed fundraiser for the Yolo Crisis Nursery, gave caregivers a few hours to themselves through the Time Off program, and much more.

Helping at Davis Community Meals has been a particular eye-opener for the girls, Manda Yeung said.

“To see families with children come through, to know that sometimes people just need a little help, it’s a perspective they wouldn’t necessarily get,” she explained.

“It’s also a nice way for moms and daughters to work together,” Yeung added. “When I was growing up, we didn’t have something like this for mothers and daughters.”

Gosende agrees.

“It’s about giving back to the community,” she said. “About being involved with more than junior high and PTA … there are a lot of people who need help.”

The National Charity League has been around for nearly 90 years, since a small group of women in Los Angeles began engaging in philanthropic work together in 1925. They called themselves “The Charity League” and were soon joined by their daughters. The group was officially named the National Charity League in 1947 and incorporated later that year.

The Davis chapter formed in September 2012 and in the year since, has provided community service to organizations ranging from Davis Community Meals and the Special Olympics to the UC Davis MIND Institute, Operation Homefront and the AYSO VIP program. Gosende said there are about 150 members in the Davis chapter with room for more at each grade level.

Girls can enter the program beginning in seventh grade and are organized by grade level with adult grade-level-advisers for each group. Girls as well as moms have regular meetings and minimum volunteer hours required.

Learn more about the local chapter at http://ncldavis.org/.

— Reach Anne Ternus-Bellamy at [email protected] or 530-747-8051.

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