Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

While the organization usually recruits mid-career professionals who have enough money to leave their jobs for up to six months and pay their own way on missions to the Third World, AJWS is also seeking volunteers to serve closer to home, becoming involved in such projects as a hillside cleanup in Marin County.

"Not everybody in the organization has two months to spend in a developing country," said Loew. "What I'm trying to bring to these projects is why clearing invasive plant species in Stinson is part of an international organization."

The recent Stinson Beach effort brought out seven local volunteers who wanted to preserve indigenous wildflowers and grasses growing in the foothills above the sleepy beach town. Non-native plants there had become overgrown and were choking the fragile natives.

The weed cleanup was the first volunteer effort organized by Loew when he took over the helm in November.

"People draw a parallel from doing work in local communities and what [other] international organizations are doing in their communities," he said.

"We might send volunteers to Belize to set up a local health-care clinic. They, in turn, send volunteers here. So, the local inevitably becomes global."

The local AJWS office was turned upside down when Loew stepped in.

"George adds a lot of vitality. Because he's a recent Stanford graduate, a number of Stanford people are involved because of George. The average age of San Francisco volunteers has dropped as a result," said Don Abramson, chair of AJWS' national executive committee. "I see all these younger people participating where we used to have people in their 60s and 70s."

The young leader also scrutinized membership lists for inactive and missing members and conducted a study to find what would inspire a once-in-a-blue moon do-gooder to become more involved.

Loew planned monthly community service events, providing volunteers with a regular schedule of activities.

If all goes smoothly, he said, community service will become a conditioned activity much like setting out the recycling bin or watching a favorite sitcom.

Volunteers will begin to think, "It's Sunday in the last weekend of the month. It's time to go out and do a service project," he said.

Loew also wants to start a fund that would help a local nonprofit social agency or community center to expand its services to disadvantaged groups.

Loew hopes that the focus on local activism will reinvigorate the service organization, encouraging donors to become more generous.

"If we can generate an active membership, then we will be more visible," Loew explained. "It's easier to ask for money if people can see that you're actually contributing."