At a May 20 Campbell Union School District School Board meeting, the husband-and-wife team of Robert and Ester Kwok received the 2004 Campbell Union School District's Volunteer of the Year Award.

"The Kwoks are a dynamic pair," said school board President Susan Mayer at the award ceremony. "And they add so much richness to the community."

Their contributions have been nothing short of impressive, Mayer noted. Since the two began volunteering their time in the district about 18 months ago, they've helped at both the school and district levels, were instrumental in establishing an education endowment fund for the district and helped increase the level of volunteerism in the community.

The Kwoks are 10-year residents of Campbell. Both are physicians—Robert a pediatrician and Ester an internist—who've been running a practice in Saratoga for seven years. They have four children, all of whom will be attending Blackford Elementary School in San Jose in September 2004.

But the Kwoks' volunteer efforts extend far beyond a single campus.

At the school level, they've served as officers in the parent-teacher association, provided translation services and coordinated events like the Health Fair Walk-a-thon, the Fall Carnival and Multicultural Day at Blackford Elementary. At the district level, they serve on the newly combined Campbell Education Foundation/Save Our Schools organization and they represent the school and parents on district committees, such as the superintendent's parent advisory committee and edPal focus groups.

Unlike most volunteers, they've taken a two-pronged approach to helping the district.

"People in this area are used to volunteering at individual schools. They raise money for individual PTAs," Ester said. "But we need to take care of the district, too."

At the PTA level, for example, money is raised for school supplies, assemblies and field trips, she said, while money for sports and music programs, IT support and employment are used at the district level.

When people volunteer only at the school level, she said, "it's like taking care of California as opposed to taking care of the country."

The Kwoks began actively volunteering last year, as it became clear that the 2003­04 California budget cuts to the state's schools would adversely affect their children's education.

"We learned that the district would have to cut about $3 million from its budget," Robert said. "And we found out that the community wasn't actively engaged in making up this money."

They set about trying to change that. They became part of a grass-roots movement to galvanize support for the Measure B parcel tax—which was meant to shore up school funding. When it failed, the couple helped spark the Save Our Schools campaign, an attempt to stave off the ill effects of insufficient funding in the district.

But increasing volunteer and donation rates in the district is one of their greatest concerns, the pair said.

"There are about 7,000 children in about 5,000 families," Robert said. "Our job is to get everyone on board. The district has a large enough population to have a solid volunteer base."

Because of Kwoks' efforts, participation rates have also increased among Spanish-speaking parents, Ester said. They really want to help out, as long as they understand what's going on.

But the Kwoks say there is still much to be done.

"The district needs more volunteers," Ester said. "We cannot do it ourselves. The more volunteers, the stronger the district becomes. It just takes more involvement."