By Clyde Noel

Town Crier Correspondent

Nadinne Cruz, director of the Haas Center for Public Service, offered her philosophy on “Strengthening Community Partnerships” at the 10th annual brunch and report to the community by the Los Altos Community Foundation.

The brunch, held Oct. 21 at the Los Altos Golf and Country Club served as a report to the community on different phases of the Community Foundation, including the recent “Los Altos Cares” fund-raiser in Shoop Park and the Bus Barn Theater.

Community Foundation president Roy Lave said, “This is not about money, it’s about community building,” as he introduced the nationally known expert in her field.

As a 32-year veteran in the practice of public service learning, Cruz’s beliefs were developed through experiences in the field of volunteer service.

A native of the Philippines, where 80 percent of the people live in poverty, she offered two theories on how to correct the situation. Using a triangle as an example, in which a small segment of people who control the majority of the wealth act as the apex of the triangle, citizens feel those on the bottom levels need to be brought up to the top whether it is through education, revised tax laws or otherwise.

The group that Cruz belong to believed the pyramid should be inverted or that wealth should be made to “trickle down” to those in the bottom rungs of society. “How can we justly distribute the resources for the bottom to live?” Cruz said.

The first theory is considered to be “service” while the second theory is not service but seen as a “political act.” Alternatives to the two main theories must be explored, she said, suggesting as an example that the pyramid is actually spinning in several different directions which makes it a multi-dimensional circle more than a flat shape.

“When there is something wrong, you need damage control and a means to put that fire out,” Cruz said. “Be prepared to quietly do that. You need to be a stitcher or a weaver and create a fabric that represents the society that should be there.”

Cruz said it may sound simplistic, but you learn by doing. Service learning is driven by a desire to do good in the world and to do it effectively. “My ideal is a place full of energized people and the exchange of ideas, based not on armchair philosophizing but on the authority of the personal experience, she said. The Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford is an excellent sample.”

Students today want community service and are not interested in politics, Cruz said. She cited that at UCLA, community service among the students is up more than 60 percent.