When the HAND program made its debut this year, says Schmidt, some people thought that it was trying to take power away from the older PBH.

But we do not want to demean what PBH has done," explains Schmidt. "This additional program just allows other people, who might not want to get involved in the organized programs at PBH, a chance to help out."

The College, however, has no corner on community concern. The Graduate school of Education and the Law School both have outreach programs. The Ed School's program, the federally funded Upward Bound, sends Harvard students to Cambridge high schools to "motivate students in terms of their high school experience," says Coordinator Dorothy A. Bowen. During the school year, student tutors work with a group of about 70 students in the Cambridge High School, doing "the same things that the high school does, except on a smaller level," Bowen says.

During the second stage of the program, students spend six weeks living on the campus so as to experience both an intense academic curriculum and life on a college campus. Out of the students who participate in the program, 98 percent go on to college, Bowen says.

From the Law School, students flow out into Cambridge through programs like the Prison Legal Assistance Project (PLAP) and the Volunteers for Income Tax Assistance. Jeffrey Purcell, a second-year law student, says his work with the Legal Aid Bureau gives him a chance actually to argue civil cases in court and is "easily the most satisfying work" he has done since he came to Harvard. In the tax program, student volunteered dispense tax advice to any interested comers.

Both graduate programs are open to undergraduates. Bowen says that Upward Bound tutors include College as well as Ed School students, and Julia R. Gordon '85, chairman of PBH's Community Action and Legal Services committee, says undergrads help out at PLAP and other law school programs. And a new PBH committee on the homeless helped Divinity School students run a shelter in the basement of a local church this winter for some of Cambridge's many street dwellers.

"Some students don't participate in social action because they feel they don't make a difference," says Jess A. Velona '83, chairman of the Committee on the Homeless, "but we have a problem right here in Cambridge." Velona says his committee has collected about 15 boxes of clothing from Harvard students and raised $1000 through the Greater Boston Walk for Hunger.

Programs similar to PBH have sprung up at Princeton. Yale, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania, among others, but none of the other programs is as old as Harvard's. "We're a fledgling organization," says Judith K. Mauer, director of UPenn's Student Volunteer Center," and we used PBH as a model."