East of Eden Stanford volunteers go the extra mile. by Vicky Anning |
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Related story: Main story on East Palo Alto |
It's a short drive from the well-groomed Stanford campus to the potholed streets of East Palo Alto. But as hundreds of Stanford students discover while doing community service work every year, it's a world away. People at both ends of University Avenue benefit from the interaction. The underfunded city gets talented volunteers, and students pick up experience in human relations and problem-solving. In all, Stanford students, faculty and staff spend an estimated 72,000 hours a year in University volunteer programs based in East Palo Alto. But students are by nature transient, and that has sometimes been a frustration for East Palo Alto, says Leonard Randolph, '87, head of the grass-roots community development agency, EPA CAN DO. They bring lots of energy and ideas to a project, stay for a year, and then they're gone, he explains. To alleviate that problem, a number of Stanford groups and individuals |