Letter: Students fill that gap with vital work

Sir: Your faint praise (leading article, 13 August) for "worthy" enterprises such as Community Service Volunteers is wrong to suggest that CSV recruits only from "among students who can afford to do voluntary work". All CSVs are provided with food, accommodation, travel and pounds 23.50 per week allowance.

The 4,000-plus volunteers are a cross-section of their generation in terms of educational attainment, ethnic origin and gender and no one is rejected. Their help is urgently needed.

ELISABETH HOODLESS

Executive Director

CSV

London N1