[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 147 (Tuesday, October 26, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S13190]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             TRIBUTE TO CITY YEAR'S OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT

 Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome this opportunity to 
commend City Year, a community service program which began eleven years 
ago in Boston. This landmark program became the prototype for 
AmeriCorps, which celebrates its own 5th anniversary this week.
  City Year has an impressive history of working closely with Boston's 
Mayor Menino to support his work in developing youth leadership, 
protecting public health, and building stronger local communities. City 
Year also works closely with the Boston Superintendent of Schools, Tom 
Payzant, and other educational leaders to develop innovative 
curriculum-based service learning projects. City Year has also engaged 
area business in supporting its efforts, so that each year they have 
been able to increase its membership and its effectiveness.
  Today, City Year organizations are found in eleven cities across the 
country. Each local corps is dedicated to offering 17-24 year olds a 
challenging year of full-time service, leadership development and 
community involvement. The founders of City Year--Michael Brown and 
Alan Khazei--has a vision that individuals working together could solve 
almost any problem. My brothers, President Kennedy and Senator Robert 
Kennedy, shared that vision. Today, that spirit of idealism is 
transforming communities across the country and inspiring thousands of 
young men and women to become involved in helping others.
  A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine eloquently 
describes the extraordinary achievements of City Year, and I ask that 
it be printed in the Record.
  The article follows.

                              Corps Values

                          (By Melissa Dribben)

       ``Have you heard Robert F. Kennedy's theory about 
     ripples?'' asks Kelly Dura.
       She tries to summon up the quote. ``It's something like `If 
     you strike out against oppression with ripples of hope . . .' 
     ''
       She frowns. ``Wait,'' she says, ``it's much better than 
     that. I don't want to guess. I'll get it for you in a 
     minute.''
       Dura, with a shag of red hair, looks at you straight on, 
     through eyes big and clear as cat's-eye marbles. She wants to 
     get this right. She wants to get everything right.
       She's 24. A fervent idealist and veteran volunteer with 
     City Year, an urban community service program, which is a 
     division of the national Americorps.
       If she can't rattle off the quotation verbatim, Dura 
     clearly gets the gist.
       The words were spoken by Kennedy in a speech about the 
     effect a single person can have on the monumental problems of 
     society. For Dura, as well as the 130 other young men and 
     women who will serve this year in Philadelphia, inspirational 
     quotations are sustenance. They help feed the corps' 
     enthusiasm through what is a frequently difficult, but 
     rewarding, time.
       The work is hard, and the relationships intense.
       ``A lot of optimists come in, wanting to change everything 
     right away,'' says Dura. ``You just can't. Change takes 
     time.''
       City Year volunteers, who receive a small stipend for their 
     work, spend the year in teams of 10, mentoring elementary 
     school students, distributing books to literacy centers and 
     teaching children how to resolve conflicts without the use of 
     knuckles or steel-toe boots. They spend time listening, 
     really listening, to senior citizens in nursing homes, 
     ladling out chicken and noodles in soup kitchens, rebuilding 
     homes with Habitat for Humanity, painting murals on tenement 
     walls and cleaning up weeds and old tires along SEPTA's train 
     tracks.
       While they are in the program, volunteers must promise not 
     to spew any profanity in public, jaywalk, pierce any part of 
     their face or wear Walkmen while out on the street (in case 
     someone wants to ask them a question about the program).
       ``It's a sacrifice for a good cause,'' says Nikki Owens, 
     20, a senior corps member, who has had to postpone putting a 
     stud below her lower lip.
       The volunteers wear uniforms--white polo shirts, khaki 
     pants, work boots and scarlet jackets--provided by 
     Timberland, the program's national sponsor. Locally, their 
     work is supported by corporations, who donate $70,000 or more 
     each year for the City Year projects, a sum matched by 
     federal grants.
       The program, which is in its 10th year, was started in 
     Boston by two Harvard Law School grads. There are now City 
     Year teams in nine cities, plus Rhode Island. Three years 
     ago, it landed in Philadelphia, where it has been one of the 
     most successful--with the fastest growing membership in the 
     country.
       Some of the volunteers, like Dura, come from comfortable 
     homes in the suburbs. Some are college graduates trying to 
     find themselves before moving on with their lives and 
     careers. Some are the daughters of drug addicts who grew up 
     in the city's worst neighborhoods, or teenage fathers, or 
     high school dropouts who were floundering until they bumped 
     into a City Year recruitment officer.
       Dion Jones, 22, had been ``sitting around for a couple of 
     years'' after finishing high school in North Philadelphia. 
     Last year, he was in the Gallery with his 2-year-old son, 
     Saadiq, when the boy saw some balloons at a table and asked 
     his father to get him one. At the table was a representative 
     from City Year, doling out information and application forms. 
     Jones filled one out. ``I didn't know what kind of job it 
     was,'' he says. ``But I needed a paycheck.''
       A few weeks later, he got a call to come in for an 
     interview. He missed the appointment. And the next. But after 
     the City Year staff called a third time, he showed up.
       ``I did service in my own neighborhood,'' he says, rubbing 
     the heavy ankh ring on his pinkie. ``The one thing that gives 
     me hope is the kids. They're happy to see you.
       ``Seeing them smile--it changed me. I've had to be more 
     empathetic. I can't holler or curse. I'm being a role model 
     for my son, 24 hours a day.''
       At the annual convention, held in Washington, D.C., at the 
     end of May, each city competes for an award--the Cup of 
     Idealism. This year, Philadelphia won. The huge silver cup 
     sits gleaming on a table covered by a red plastic tablecloth 
     in the City Year offices at 23d and Chestnut.
       A tour takes less than five minutes. There are a few 
     offices and a lot of snapshots of volunteers. I step into the 
     elevator. ``Hold it!'' It is Dura, sprinting down the hall. 
     ``I found the quote.''
       ``Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing 
     one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the 
     world's ills. * * * Each time a man stands up for an ideal, 
     or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against 
     injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and, crossing each 
     other from a million different centers of energy and daring, 
     those ripples build a current which can sweep down the 
     mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.''

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