N. Grace Krudop

  General Notes:

Grace established one of the first formal teen-age volunteer hospital programs in the country. Once a week after school fifteen girls from Columbia High School in nearby Maplewood arrived at the New Jersey Orthopedic Hospital with red and white striped pinafores across their arms. After establishing a teen-age volunteer program at New Jersey Orthopedic Hospital, Orange, NJ, in the nineteen fifties, She helped a number of other hospitals set up similar programs. As members of the Candy Stripers, they are among 200 students in Essex County (as of 1960) who do volunteer work at the Hospital Center of Orange, and among several thousand daily volunteers in other suburban metropolitan hospitals.
The girls, who each serve at least two and a half hours a week, act as receptionists, help to feed patients, answer call bells and help transport patients. "These are dedicated children," Mrs. Edward B. Laufer of South Orange, director of the units group said; "The value of their efforts to the community cannot be measured."
Candy Stripers work under a graded system whereby the more experienced receive the greater responsibilities. The girls, ranging in age from 14 to 16 are recruited through school faculty advisers, church organizations and other community groups. To be eligible, they must receive parental consent and rate high in their studies.

The volunteers are known as Candy Stripers from their uniforms. Grace became a volunteer desk hostess at Orthopedic Hospital in 1947 and continued as chairman of the Candy Stripe program until her death in 1967.

N. married Edward B. Laufer, son of Rev. Dr. Calvin Weiss Laufer and Ellen Metzgar. (Edward B. Laufer was born on 24 Jun 1899 in New York and died in Feb 1987 in South Orange, Essex County, New Jersey.)