She spent the day surrounded by Anzac biscuits, jam donuts and banana scrolls but for Sarah Kern, 10, the best part of volunteering is meeting new people.
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"I made lots of new friends. It didn't matter how old they were," she said.
Sarah and her twin sister Maya were among more than 60 people who spent their Sunday cooking meals for the needy at community kitchen Our Big Kitchen in Bondi.
The project is one of dozens of volunteer opportunities co-ordinated by not-for-profit organisation Kids Giving Back. Created two years ago by friends Ruth Tofler-Riesel and Carole Schlessinger, it began as a way of introducing their own children to volunteer work.
The organisation has since cooked and delivered more than 10,000 meals to people in need.
"We thought, if we want our kids to volunteer then there must be other parents out there who feel the same," Ms Tofler-Riesel said.
As part of Sunday's event, families with children as young as six and teenagers up to 18 years donned aprons and hair nets, making friends, sharing jokes and cooking and delivering 540 meals. The program also helped raise funds to purchase baking equipment for The Hub, a Bangkok charity supported by Reverend Bill Crews of the Exodus Foundation.
Ms Tofler-Riesel said delivering the food was just as important as making it.
"It's about face-to-face contact," she said.
"Often [the kids] are delivering to their own neighbourhood, which means they might deliver to a house they walk past every day without realising someone inside is in need."
Volunteer Ava Lawler, who came with her daughter Kaija Du, 9, said events like Cook4Good encouraged children to develop a sense of shared responsibility.
"Our children live a privileged life in the overall scheme of things, so it's important to help them build skills of empathy," she said.
Maya and Sarah are becoming well-versed in the art of helping, having participated in several Kids Giving Back charity programs, including cooking with refugees and asylum seekers. But they don't think they'll get bored of volunteering anytime soon.
"I like doing stuff to help other people," Maya says.
"I don't know how you say it - " She pauses. "But I feel good inside when I do it."
