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April 27, 2005

Community Partnership Award winners to be honored on May 3

The Office of Public Affairs will present the 2005 Community Partnership Awards to members of three local organizations—the Community Working Group, the Youth Engaged in Leadership and Learning program and United Students for Veterans' Health—at a luncheon on May 3. This is the second year that the university has presented the awards, which recognize programs that benefit the local community and represent successful community partnerships between Stanford and its neighbors.

This year's Community Partnership Awards recipients were chosen from a group of 25 nominated programs. The luncheon will be hosted by the Garden Court Hotel in Palo Alto, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

"We were particularly pleased that this year's winners include partnerships from Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Redwood City," said Jean McCown, director of community relations. "They represent a terrific cross-section of diverse Stanford groups, a school district, local governments, civic groups, the Veterans Administration and individuals from throughout our community."

More about the 2005 Community Partnership Award winners:

  • The Community Working Group (CWG) was founded with the goal of finding a community response to homelessness and poverty in the mid-Peninsula area. The group's pursuit of that goal led to the creation of the Opportunity Center—a mixed-use facility that opens later this year with a combination of 89 units of extremely low-income housing and an on-site multiple service center for the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless. Since its beginnings, the group was successful in securing the active participation and support of a diverse cross-section of local organizations, including the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce, Stanford University, religious organizations, business people, social service providers and municipal governments. Recognizing the necessity of having a corporate identity in order to make the dream of an Opportunity Center become a reality, CWG incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1999. However, its directors decided that the group would not become a traditional nonprofit organization with specialized staff, but rather achieve its goals through partnerships with other organizations that have the appropriate experience and through consultants who perform needed staff work. Thus, CWG has developed working partnerships with successful nonprofit organizations that share its vision and desire to serve the homeless.
  • Youth Engaged in Leadership and Learning (YELL) is an after-school program in Redwood City that trains youth to engage in social change efforts in their school and community. Over the past five years, the program has expanded to include sixth- through eighth-grade students at Kennedy Middle School while continuing to support the participants who have moved on to high school. This year, 80 students are involved in YELL, and the program has created a ladder of opportunities for youth to learn about ways they can influence change in their community. Sixth graders begin with community service projects, while seventh graders research issues of concern to them. As eighth graders, students work to advocate for change based on the research they conducted the year before. YELL's success has been made possible through a multi-faceted partnership between the Gardner Center at Stanford University, Redwood City 20/20, Kennedy Middle School and the leadership of Redwood City.
  • United Students for Veterans' Health (USVH), a national student-led volunteer organization, was created to aid in the care and enrich the lives of veterans across the nation. USVH strives to help long-term-care patients in Veterans Affairs hospitals. USVH was founded in the spring of 1994 by a Stanford student who was volunteering in the Alzheimer's ward at the Palo Alto VA Hospital and discovered a group of patients suffering from loneliness. The Stanford USVH program began with 40 volunteers who spent their afternoons and evenings with the patients by going on walks, playing games and engaging in conversation. Typically, these patients are elderly and suffer from some type of cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. However, opportunities to help exist in any ward where patients are experiencing loneliness. In some cases, interested students also can participate in the clinical care of patients, depending on the willingness and need of the hospital. Primarily, however, the goal of USVH is to make veterans feel appreciated.
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    Contact

    Jean McCown, Director of Community Relations: (650) 725-3329, jmccown@stanford.edu

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