The Give-Back Years

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Fourteen years ago, after two elderly sisters in the care of county workers were found starved to death, Judge Friedman was asked by the county board of supervisors to join a panel charged with investigating services to the aged. Within a year, Friedman and others on the panel had created a model system of programs to replace the one that had failed the hapless women. But in 1992, budget cutbacks forced its cancellation. Friedman quickly countered by launching ACE, a consortium of six agencies that agreed collaboratively to close the gap in services the county would no longer provide. Trained by the agencies they work for, volunteers perform many tasks--from phoning shut-ins to assisting in the mediation of disputes or investigating allegations of abuse in board-and-care facilities and nursing homes.

Though too few in number ("The agencies tell us they could easily make use of 300," says Friedman.), ACE volunteers enjoy a reputation for being well screened and well prepped before they are placed. Public confidence is likely to grow even more now that five-year-old ACE has procured its first grant. Last month, with $23,879 from a local foundation, ACE began offering its recruits 15 hours of professional training in how to identify physical and mental-health problems in the population they serve.

THE GANG OF THREE Their free time will help fill kids' after-school hours

While most people are making lists of gifts to buy kith and kin this holiday season, three generous souls in Kennett Square, Pa., have been reviewing final plans for a brand-new after-school program, scheduled to open in January. John and Denise Wood, both 81, and Marshall Newton, 66, have been recruiting fellow retirees, along with high school and college students, to serve as volunteer instructors in a range of after-school activities--including computer sciences, drama, entrepreneurship, sewing, sculpture, chess and dance--for the greater Kennett community's middle school children.

The need for such a program in Kennett Square, home of a thriving mushroom industry that has drawn an ethnically diverse population of 22,000, was revealed to Denise Wood and Marshall Newton while they were working on a three-year community quality-of-life survey sponsored by their church. One of the recurring laments heard on taped interviews conducted by Newton, a former financial manager for DuPont, was the lack of activities for children between the end of the school day and the time parents return home from work.

"The time of greatest danger and needs for youth in Kennett, as in other communities across America, is between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m.," says Denise, a former dean of students at a college-preparatory school in Los Angeles. Joined by Denise's husband John, Newton and Wood launched plans for an after-school program, to be based at the Kennett Middle School, whose population of 540 students (18% Hispanic, 7% African American, 2% Asian and remainder white) was a microcosm of the community itself.