In the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts last Wednesday night a parade of celebrities came on stage to read poetry and stories, led by the First Lady, Hillary Clinton.
She read The Railway Children, by Seamus Heaney, and spoke about her involvement in Northern Ireland, which has grown steadily since her first visit in 1994.
She was followed on stage by a member of the Clinton cabinet, Carol Browner; members of Congress; Kathleen Kennedy Towns end; former White House spokesman Mike McCurry; John Sweeney, head of the biggest labour federation, the AFL-CIO; and Alice McDermott, winner of the national fiction award.
Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill read three of her poems. Altan from Co Donegal performed, as did the "world champion" Trinity Dancers.
In the audience were members of the cabinet, Senator Edward Kennedy, more Congressmen, senior diplomats, influential lobbyists, captains of industry and a New York policeman from Co Cork called Denis Mulcahy with his wife, Miriam, from Ballinamore, Co Leitrim.
This glittering Washington gala evening was all about honouring the policeman from New York who, 25 years ago, had the idea of giving children from Northern Ireland a chance to get away to the US from the grim scene at home.
He and his brothers, originally from Rockchapel, Co Cork, decided back in 1975, as bombs exploded and some children died violently in Northern Ireland, that they must do something to help. Denis Mulcahy knows what bombs can do as he works in the New York bomb squad.
They would arrange a US holiday for a few children. And they would let Catholic and Protestant children play together in a way not possible at home.
Six children came that first year to join the Mulcahys and another family for a holiday at Greenwood Lake, New York. One of them was nine-year-old Kevin Brady. The audience in the Kennedy Centre watched a video of the boy talking haltingly of how he found himself roomed with John Cheever, a Protestant.
For Kevin, Protestants at home could spell danger if you strayed from your street, but John was OK. They became friends.
Then the lights went up and the Kevin of 25 years later was on stage to tell how that holiday had changed his life and how he was still friends with John Cheever. With Kevin was Kerrie Brennan (12), a Protestant girl from Belfast, who flew over to talk about her US holiday last year.
Kevin has been followed by over 14,000 boys and girls who have taken the trip across the Atlantic for a summer holiday. They have stayed with US families in 22 states who have generously opened their homes to them for six weeks.
This is what Project Children has become in 25 years since Denis and Miriam Mulcahy organised the first trips from their New York kitchen. Now there is a network of hundreds of volunteers in Washington and other cities who give up time freely.
Project Children has in recent years expanded its original idea of bringing Catholic and Protestant children together for a US holiday. Now students from Queen's University are coming to Washington to become interns in Congress, government departments, the White House, media organisations and law offices.
These placements are not easy to arrange, and Project Children has impressive access to the corridors of power in Washington through Carol Wheeler's networking from her Georgetown home.
Another expansion has been to bring Protestant and Catholic vocational students to the US to acquire building skills by linking up with Habitat for Humanity. This is the international scheme which provides houses for the underprivileged and has former president Jimmy Carter as an active participant.
The US trade unions have co-operated enthusiastically in the training of the young Irish workers on housing projects in Florida, Montana, New York, Texas and Virginia.
But what happens when the idyllic holiday is over for the youngsters and they go back to the divided communities at home? Often the children who played together in the US remain cut off from each other, even when living only streets apart.
For the past three years, some of them have come together at a soccer camp in Derry where they are joined by US friends. Last year the Omagh bombing happened the day the visitors arrived, a grim reminder of what life in Northern Ireland has been for children as well as adults.
Denis Mulcahy, who risks his life dismantling terrorist bombs, has been able to show thousands of children that there can be a life without bombs and where religion need not be a barrier to friendship. And thousands of Americans have made it possible.