We met with Nadinne Cruz, director of the Haas Center for Public Service, to discuss plausible options for community service. We agreed that the challenges in planning community service events were common to most student organizations. These included knowledge about and ownership of the event, as well as sometimes unrealistic or last minute plans for events.

 

As a member of the Public Service Advisory Board at the center, Ryan received a commitment from Nadinne to have a staff liaison from the Haas Center work with us, should we win. We subsequently decided to build our community service commitment on a realistic, goal-driven level. Our structure and commitment back to Nadinne will be a Senior Class committee to work with the center's staff liaison.

 

Our conclusion was that the best way to create realistic and successfully attended events is to set an objective up front with a target goal. We will organize the calendar of community service events over the summer and simply follow through with those set dates throughout the year.

 

After talking extensively with Nadinne about the most important current projects that we can take on, we came up with an initial program of three projects:

 

1. SPOON - Our committee will work to increase the food waste-reduction organization's collection amount. Tentatively, with Nadine's suggestion, our target amount is a 50% increase. If we do reach our target goal, we may have to negotiate and work with the ASSU to purchase a new freezer to accommodate the increased amount of collected food. This will run around $500.

 

2. Habitat for Humanity - It may seem that this idea can be grouped with overused and default activities like homeless outreaches, beach cleanups and soup kitchen events, but after our meeting, we see that it is something that is not just possible and fun, but a well-organized program that is always in need of help. Tentatively, our goal is to complete building three houses, from start to finish. If this is done, we will be given recognition on a plaque placed on each house that will read "Stanford Class of 2004."

 

3. Magic - we will work with this organization to plant oak trees in the foothills. Our tentative target goal is to plant 250 trees in the winter. Throughout the rest of the year, we will participate in the organization's other maintenance work, specifically tree maintenance.

 

Summary: We want to keep our community service plan simple and realistic while still doing significant things for the local and greater community that are interesting and not cliche. Our solution is to come up with larger objectives within a small number of projects. Our commitments to the programs throughout the year will establish our ownership of them. Finally, we will have the support and consultation of a Haas Center staff liaison who will have a commitment to our class' committee on community service.