Enlisting the help of older daughter Malia, Obama put on a pair of blue gloves and an apron to help out at a service project at DC Central Kitchen. Read more and check out pics after the jump!

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(DailyMail)–The son and daughter team helped out other workers at the capitol’s soup kitchen packing rice and gumbo for chicken sausage gumbo meals that will go to organizations such as DC Public Schools, Covenant House Washington, and New Endeavors by Women.

Public pessimism about the direction of the country has jumped to its highest level in nearly three years, pushing his approval ratings to a record low, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Some of the staff at DC Central Kitchen are part of the Culinary Jobs Training Program, which provides formerly incarcerated, addicted and homeless men and women with hospitality jobs.

Obama and his family offered their services at the kitchen to commemorate the 9/11 tenth anniversary with the intention to underscore the call to national service that rang so loudly after the terrorist attacks.

Though many wondered what significance the president helping out in a soup kitchen had to do with the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks ten years ago, he assured the public that projects to serve the community ‘are part of what the spirit of remembering 9/11’s all about – the country being unified and looking out for one another’.

In an email to supporters, the President urged others to follow his lead.

‘With just a small act of service, or a simple act of kindness towards others, you can both honour those we lost and those who serve us still, and help us recapture the spirit of generosity and compassion that followed 9/11,’ he wrote.