On Christmas Eve 1957, 14-year-old Don Hoage was working until midnight at the National Capital Optimist Club's Christmas tree lot in Chevy Chase when his manager told him to take any deal at all to clear out merchandise.

But when a man in a sedan rolled up and offered $3 for a 12-foot Canadian balsam, Hoage refused and worked him up to $6. It was for charity, after all; every tree sold on the Optimists' lots benefits a local charitable cause.

The next step seemed like a lost cause.

"I said, ‘How are you going to get this in your trunk?'" Hoage, of Kensington, recalled of the tall tree. "He said, ‘That's all right, I want two Christmas trees out of this. I want you to saw it in half and put them both in next to each other.'"

Hoage has been selling trees — whole ones — with the Optimists more or less ever since. Last year the group sold 2,500 Christmas trees totaling $40,000 and gave the proceeds to nearly two dozen Washington-area youth charities, such as the Children's Inn at National Institutes of Health, the Montgomery Generals Wrestling Club and the Make A Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic.

The Optimists, who run their charity under an optimist's creed, number just 23 plucky members now, including absentee members in Colorado and Pennsylvania. The creed includes an admonishment to "always wear a cheerful countenance" and "to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear and too happy to permit the presence of trouble."

"What we need is more members," said Ed Justice of Bethesda, noting that some of them are "getting up there" in years. "The main thing is we do a lot of good for the amount of time it takes to be involved with the club. We raise a lot of money and help a lot of kids."

And sell a lot of trees. The Optimists have two lots, one tucked behind the Chevy Chase Supermarket in Chevy Chase and one at the Christ Church Parish in Kensington. They moved to the Chevy Chase lot about a decade ago from a more prominent location on Manor Road, but the customers came along.

"We kept 75 percent of our business," said Jim Douglas, an Optimist from Olney. "That's really a testament to the loyalty of our customers because that's a place you couldn't start a tree lot because it's hidden."

Last week the Optimists ordered 1,000 more trees to keep up with sales. Douglas said the recession hasn't hurt their tree sales — in fact, they sold more trees last year than the year before.

Mary Ann Toomey of Bethesda is among the faithful. Toomey and her husband, Joe, bought their Fraser fir there last week because the lot is near their house and because the money goes to good causes.

"It needs to go someplace good, someplace well-deserved," Toomey said. "It's nice, it's convenient, the people are extremely friendly and the money goes to a good cause."

To help with hefting trees and cutting stumps, the Optimists enlist Montgomery County Public School students who need Service Learning hours and volunteers from the Montgomery County Volunteer Center. And in June, after nominations for worthy organizations are made by members of the club, all the money from the tree sales will be put back into charity.

Hoage said his Optimist father paid him to sell trees that first time in 1957, but now he's a volunteer that doesn't know any other way.

"I wouldn't know what Christmas was if it wasn't for selling Christmas trees," he said.