What ties John Palinski and Trudy-Ann Forbes is their common interest in nonprofits, and their status as the current Snow fellows.

In 2001, John Palinski was living in England, virtually debt free, working at a contact lens and eyeglass shop. Then came Sept. 11.

"It wasn't about me anymore," says Palinski, a graduate of Grinnell College. "I needed to find a way to give back." He returned to the United States and followed a path through a number of public service agencies, working with AmeriCorps in Chicago with the Public Ally Program, with the Baltimore (Md.) Resettlement Agency, and with the Youth Service Opportunities Project in Washington, D.C. Then he decided he needed more education if he wanted to do more.

But he also knew that life in public service is rarely lucrative enough to support a year's study in a prestigious M.P.A. program. That's why, when he was accepted at Maxwell, the Snow Fellows Program was so important to him. It provides full-tuition scholarships and a living stipend each year to two M.P.A. students who are committed to working in nonprofits. The Snow Foundation, which has funded the program since 1990, also stipulates that recipients perform hands-on, nonprofit work through the Central New York Community Foundation.

For Trudy-Ann Forbes, another of the Snow fellows, there was some reluctance toward applying to Maxwell. "I was a mother with a young child in Florida," she said. "How could I completely disrupt my life and my family's life for a year by heading north for an intense program of study?" She was content with her work as the grant development director for the YMCA of Greater Miami. She had also worked in D.C. with Street Law, a program that makes the law relevant to everyday life through teaching in public schools.

But once she heard about the Snow Fellowships, and with her husband's enthusiastic support, she applied and was delighted to be accepted. "Frankly, I couldn't have considered this move at all without the Snow Fellowship and my family's blessing and encouragement," she says. "I'm very fortunate."

Forbes' undergraduate and first master's program work at Florida International and Howard universities concentrated on international policy and its impact on women's lives. Her intent after Maxwell is to find a position with an NGO or foundation that serves this growing area of interest.

Not entirely sure of his goal after Maxwell, Palinski is intrigued by Senior Corps, which links Americans over age 55 with service opportunities.