David Treadwell is executive director of the Central Union Mission, which, at 127 years old, is the oldest social service agency in the city. The agency has been doing Christmas gift drives for years, but has expanded its program this year to keep up with a sharp increase in demand because of a still-limping economy and high poverty rates in the District. How long has Central Union Mission been giving gifts to children on Christmas?

We can trace it back to 1920 — we have pictures of Grace Coolidge with the children around 1920. We’ve been doing children’s work since 1917. We take 400 children to camp for free for a week in the summer. We do back-to-school, Easter and Christmas drives for children. We also have a long-term shelter program for men, and then we do food. Last year we gave away 400,000 bags of groceries and served 60,000 hot meals.