Bay Area woman's community service idea from 2012 grows to thousands of volunteers

Thousands of people are volunteering in hundreds of community projects in three Bay Area counties, and it's because of an idea a Los Altos woman had 14 years ago.Jan McDaniel leads a small group of volunteers for a big week of community service. She began in 2012, when she and others set out to put their faith into action at Los Altos United Methodist Church."We had the expectation and desire to get people out to meet and to serve," said McDanielThey started with 300 people volunteering for half a day. The service projects are funded by congregants' donations."We discovered that we had this unmet need for people who really wanted to get out and make this a more compassionate community," McDaniel said.She said the program had so many volunteers that it quickly evolved into an annual Compassion Week, with multiple churches and denominations.From cooking hot meals to cleaning beaches, they engage in a wide variety of community service. There's something for everyone.People even volunteer