As seventh-graders, the two Willow Glen residents joined the National Charity League Almaden/Blossom Valley chapter along with their mothers. The league's goal is to foster mother-daughter relationships through shared community service and cultural experiences.

Now seniors in high school, Leah and Caroline are ready to "graduate" from the program. Along with fellow Willow Glen residents Sabrina Mize and Janelle Zetterquist, they participated in the league's senior presentation ceremony on March 20.

The ceremony marked the completion of hundreds of community-service hours the league teens and their mothers put in, with a variety of local nonprofit organizations, during the past six years. At each grade level, the teens are exposed to different areas of philanthropy.

"It gives them broad experience and skills and some leadership qualities," said Sharon Fuller, Leah's mother.

The league also provides its members with an infrastructure that motivates them to keep up the good work. Caroline, a senior at Archbishop Mitty High School, had done a little community service prior to joining the league but said her volunteer work was sporadic. "NCL got me in the mindset of making a continuous commitment," she added.

"You have regular hours, so it helps you stay on task," said Leah, a senior at Notre Dame High School. "You're committed to it, whereas if I'd done it by myself, I wouldn't have done as much. The value of the organization is that it starts kids early in life so they grow up knowing that [their community] is partly their responsibility."

Both Leah and Caroline performed a wide variety of community services through the league, working for Second Harvest Food Bank, the San Jose Family Shelter for victims of domestic violence, InnVision homeless shelters, the American Cancer Society and Special Olympics.

At InnVision, Leah ran an art class for at-risk children. "It was probably my most meaningful NCL experience, because I worked there for so long and put in so many hours that I really got to know the kids," she said. "I learned a lot from the kids. I met a little girl there who was really appreciative of what she had. I learned that if she could be happy with what she had, it was very easy for me to do that, too."

Caroline said working with people from disparate backgrounds made her put aside some of her preconceived notions. "As the upper middle class, we don't see people from other walks of life that often," she added. "In seventh grade we were kind of awkward about it all, [but] after a while, it doesn't matter who people are."

The league program also helped Caroline see her mother, Gene, in a different light. "I definitely connected with my mom," she said. "As a teenage girl, I bypassed that whole rebellious stage because we were working together for a common goal and with a common sense of purpose."

Mother and daughter also saw each other grow and change by interacting with the people they were helping.

Sharon Fuller said this mother-daughter connection runs both ways. "It's fun to see how my daughter relates [to other people]," she said, adding that outside the league, "we tend to see each other at dinner and in the car."

And she adds, "The universe can get pretty small in Willow Glen. You start to think within a 10-block radius. [Through the league], you see that the outside world isn't so dissimilar."