[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 112 (Monday, September 9, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8372-S8374]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE CHALLENGE OF COMMUNITY SERVICE
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, we have learned much in the last
year about how to measure the strength of America, a Nation built on
the willingness of our citizens to give of their time and their energy,
knowing that in the end our freedom and strength as individuals is
connected to the freedom and strength of our Nation, and when one
falters the other suffers in turn. Mothers and fathers have passed
along to every successive generation pride in sacrifice and a
commitment to our shared values that have become the touchstone of
America's strength, grounded in the simple words of DeTocqueville:
``America is great because Americans are good.''
Arthur Blaustein's book on American volunteerism proves that the
spirit of our forebears, that spirit that carried us through the
tumultuous early days, a Civil War, a Depression, two World Wars, and
the upheaval at home and overseas of the sixties, is alive and well
today. From commitments to civil rights and civic bodies to military
service and community volunteering, our Nation is a nation committed to
strengthening and improving the world around us.
And every time Americans have sought to strengthen our freedom and
values, we have found individuals willing to volunteer their time and
lead by their example, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Clara Barton,
Rachel Carson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many more. And today,
youngsters in middle school and high school have more opportunities
than ever to volunteer in their local communities, in nursing homes,
tutoring their peers, or helping protect our environment; and are doing
so in increasing numbers.
Arthur Blaustein, a long-time volunteer himself and an active force
in American volunteer efforts, has written a book that appears at a
crucial moment in our Nation's history, a moment when communal and
civic engagement are more important then ever. His book honors the high
ideals and values that are found in these organizations that have
proven so successful in strengthening the ties of our communities and
our country.
His message is an important one: if America is to remain strong and
committed to our values, civic and community engagement is a necessity.
I applaud his proposals and hope many more, both young and old, will
volunteer their time and energy to keep America strong.
Part I, The Challenge of Community Service: The traditions of
community service and citizen participation have been at the heart of
American civic culture since before the nation was founded; whether
through town hall meetings, the local school board, a political party,
a hospital auxiliary, or one of our innumerable other national and
local organizations, Americans have felt and acted on the need to give
something back to their communities. Yet since the events of September
11, this need has become more urgent, as Americans on the whole have
become more introspective and more patriotic. This patriotism has taken
many different forms, but one thing is clear: our concern for our
country, our communities, our families, and our neighbors has become
more acute, and our need to contribute more urgent.
With firefighters, police officers, and rescue teams leading the way,
ordinary citizens, ironworkers, teachers, public health clinicians,
professionals, businesspeople, and schoolchildren, either volunteered
to go to Ground Zero or offered their support from a distance.
Everything from blankets to blood, peanut butter to poetry arrived
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in New York City by the bale, the gallon, the barrel, and the ream.
Americans didn't wait until January 1, 2002, to make resolutions; in
mid-September, many resolved to be more caring and giving.
Make a Difference is here to help harness this outpouring of
compassion, energy, and patriotism in creative and useful ways. If
you've decided to make a difference because of the events of September
11, or if volunteering is one of those things you've been meaning to do
all along but just haven't gotten around to, or if you're just curious
about what's out there, this book can help you take the next step. It
was designed to help you decide that you can make a contribution to the
well-being of your community. It will help to answer the why, the how,
the what, and the when. Why is community service important? How can you
get in touch with a group that promotes the values and goals that you
believe in? What specific volunteer activities match up with your
skills and experiences? When is a good time to volunteer?
Each of the organizations included in the book has been selected
because of its commitment to educational, social, economic,
environmental, and community development goals. Some have been in
existence for many decades and others are fairly new. Most are national
organizations and some are local prototypes; but all have a solid track
record of delivering services that are useful and meaningful. Before
you select an organization, ask yourself a few questions.
How much time do you want to serve?
What kind of service fits your personality?
What neighborhood and community do you want to work in?
Which target population do you want to work with?
What skills do you have to offer?
What would you like to gain from the experience?
If, for example, you're over 17 can commit a full year, and would
like leadership training, some income, and a stipend, you should
seriously consider AmeriCorps. If you want to commit a year and you're
over 18 and want to work on environmental, art, or music projects, or
in community development, you should think about Volunteers in Service
to America (VISTA). If you only have a weekend or one day a week, you
like working with your hands, and you want to be outdoors, Habitat for
Humanity will probably be perfect. If you only have a few hours a
week and enjoy children, consider mentoring or tutoring with an
educational group. It might take some reflection and research, but
there is a fulfilling opportunity for everyone.
Historically, our greatest strength as a nation has been to be there
for one another. Citizen participation is the lifeblood of democracy.
As Thomas Paine put it, ``The highest calling of every individual in a
democratic society is that of citizen!'' Accidents of nature and
abstract notions of improvement do not make our communities better or
healthier places in which to live and work. They get better because
people like you decide that they want to make a difference.
Volunteering is not a conservative or liberal, Democratic or
Republican issue; caring and compassion simply help to define us as
being human, Unfortunately, opportunistic radio talk-show hosts and
reactionary politicians have spread two false myths about community
service. The first is the notion that only inner-city minorities
benefit from volunteer efforts. Here's a story about that myth, told to
me by a friend who was in VISTA. He was helping local groups organize
fuel cooperatives many years ago, in small towns in Maine. That winter
was unusually cold and the price of home heating had skyrocketed,
placing an enormous financial burden on most families in the state,
which had a low per-capita income. He was invited to make a
presentation to about two hundred residents in their town's church.
After the talk, one of the ``happy guy'' television reporters from
Portland baited a farmer, asking, ``What do you think of this outside
agitation?''
The farmer, who was about seventy-five, paused for a moment; and,
with an edge of flint in his voice, he said, ``You know, I'm a fourth-
generation Republican Yankee, just like my father, my grandfather, and
my great-grandfather, but if I've learned anything, it's that there are
two kinds of politics and economics in America. The first kind is what
I see on television and what politicians tell me when they want my
vote. The other kind is what me and my friends talk about over
doughnuts and coffee. And that's what this young fellow was talking
about tonight, and he made a lot of sense to me. I'm joining the co-
op.''
Over 65 percent of America's poor are, like this farmer, white, and
white families with children are the fastest growing homeless
population. The myth that social programs only serve inner-city
minorities stigmatizes volunteer social programs, which are, in fact,
color-blind.
The second myth is that the vast majority of individuals who
volunteer for community service are naive, idealistic do-gooders.
Here's a story about that myth. It happened to me in a bookstore in
Northern California. Six years ago, I was a technical advisor to the
producers of a public television series called ``The New War on
Poverty.'' There was a companion book to the series, and since I had
been one of the contributing editors, the publisher asked me to give
readings. This particular evening, I showed film clips from the series
and spoke about the importance of several War on Poverty programs,
including Head Start, the Job Corps, VISTA, Legal Services, and Upward
Bound.
While I was signing books after the reading, a woman in her mid-
twenties who looked like a quintessential California valley girl, blond
hair, blue eyes, approached me with tears in her eyes. I asked if I had
said anything that offended her. She replied that I had not and told me
she was nonpolitical, conservative, and in her last year of law school.
She had been a political science major at college but knew nothing
about the history of the War on Poverty. She said she was
ashamed because, despite having benefited from two of the programs I
had spoken about, Head Start and Upward Bound, she had never before
felt a responsibility to give back to her community, and to assure that
these programs would be continued so that others could have the same
opportunities she had.
Like this woman, the vast majority of volunteers I've worked with are
not idealistic, but are serious realists. They are only too aware that
as a nation we cannot squander our human and natural resources.
Community service not only exposes the sterility of this kind of
idealism-versus-realism debate, but helps individuals to integrate
their own idealism and realism. An idealist without a healthy dose of
realism tends to become a naive romantic. A realist without ideals
tends to become a cynic. Community service helps you put your ideals to
work in a realistic setting. It creates a dynamic tension that gives
you a coherent and comprehensive approach to complex problems. I've
seen it happen time and again with my students, and with VISTA and
AmeriCorps volunteers. Dr. Margaret Mead, one of my teachers in
graduate school at Columbia, wrote that a truly healthy person is a
thinking, feeling, acting person. That's what serving helps us to
achieve.
The talk-show hosts and politicians who push these myths are
scapegoating and attacking the most vulnerable segments of our society.
They are adept at moralizing over the problems of the homeless and the
hungry, the unemployed and the underemployed, drug users and the
mentality ill, and over such issues as infant mortality, child and
spousal abuse, and disrupted families. But they have neither the heart
nor the will for rigorous thought and the work of finding cures, nor
even relieving some of the suffering or symptoms. Just as military
service and patriotism should not be politicized, neither should
community service.
Nearly 40 years ago, when President John F. Kennedy launched the
Peace Corps, he made this oft-quoted suggestion: ``Ask not what your
country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.'' After
30 years of firsthand experience with hundreds of volunteers, I would
make a follow-up suggestion: ``Ask not what you can do for your
community and the people you serve, but what they can do for you.''
Community service is very much a two-way street. It is about giving and
receiving, and the receiving can be
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nourishing for the heart and mind. The very act of serving taps into a
wellspring of empathy and generosity that is both personally gratifying
and energizing. Again and again, former volunteers described their
experiences with words like these: adventure, growth, human connection,
exciting, spiritual, learning, and enjoyable.
I saw this in action 3 years ago when I decided to give the students
in each of my classes, mostly university seniors, the choice between a
mid-semester exam or sixteen hours of community service. The students
unanimously chose service--though most of them didn't know what was in
store for them. They had a choice of about ten different activities
organized by the Public Service Center at the University of California,
Berkeley.
Here's what one student wrote about this experience: ``Before I
started volunteering, I had very different expectations about the
[after-school] program. I thought it would be very sports-oriented with
little academic emphasis. Luckily, my expectations proved false. The
program for fourth and fifth-grader at the Thousand Oaks/Franklin
Elementary School, has a set schedule for each grade. The students
rotate between free play, sports, library study time, circle time, and
arts and crafts.
It was in the library that I saw how truly behind these
children are in mathematics, reading, and grammar. In
addition, I never expected to see the immense poverty that
these children experience or to be so emotionally affected by
it. Last week, I learned that one of my favorite children is
homeless. It seems so silly to be reprimanding him for not
doing his homework and not putting out the effort at school.
This seems so trivial compared to the real-life horrors that
he must experience. Although I had my expectations, never did
I anticipate the emotional attachment that I now share with
these children. I find myself yearning to become a teacher,
which was a career I never thought about before this program.
I know that as these children grow, they will probably forget
about me; but I know I will never forget them. I have truly
changed and matured as a result of them.
A second student wrote:
Before I started tutoring I was really scared, because I
didn't know what tutors did in junior high schools. I was
afraid of not being able to explain things so that the kids
could understand. I thought I might also lose patience
quickly with kids who were slower in understanding and for
whom I would have to repeatedly state the same thing. I was
concerned that the kids would resent me or not respect me
because I wasn't the teacher and was closer to their age. And
finally, I thought they wouldn't like me; the first day I
even had trouble introducing myself because of this initial
uncertainty.
Contrary to these preliminary fears, however, tutoring at
Willard has been a life-changing experience for me. I've
found that I have more patience working with kids than I've
ever had in any other area of my life. I work hard to come up
with lots of examples when the kids I'm working with don't
understand. We relate well to one another because I'm close
to their age, yet they respect me because I go to Cal and
they know that I'm there to help them. It's been the joy of
my semester to work with these students, who I really
appreciate.
These comments were typical of the experience of nearly all 80
students. Their testimony is consistent with the more formal academic
research and evaluations, which tell us that service-learning clearly
enriches and enhances the individual volunteer in multiple ways. And
the same things happened to me during my own community service 35 years
ago, when I taught in Harlem during the early years of the War on
Poverty and VISTA.
My students now, and I back then, confronted the complexities of the
everyday worlds of individuals and communities quite different from our
own. We are forced to deal with difficult social and economic
realities. It was an eye-opener to learn about the inequities and
injustices of our society, to see firsthand the painful struggles of
children who did not have the educational, social, or economic
opportunities that we took for granted. This experience was humbling
and it broke down my insularity, for which I'm truly grateful. Again,
it was Dr. Margaret Mead who called this ``heart-learning.''
Community service also taught me an important lesson about our
society: ethical values and healthy communities are not inherited. They
are either recreated through action by each generation, or they are
not. That is what makes AmeriCorps, VISTA, and other forms of community
service unique and valuable. They help us to regenerate our best values
and principles as individuals and as a society. From Plato to the
present, civic virtue has been at the core of civilized behavior. My
experience as a teacher and with service-learning has taught me that
moral and ethical values cannot survive from one generation to the next
if the only preservatives are texts or research studies. Real-life
experience is the crucible for shaping values. Out of it develop an
intuition and a living memory that are the seeds of a humane and just
society.
The task of passing along to the young our best civic traditions is
made more difficult by the steady shift of emphasis away from
qualitative values civility, cooperation, and the public interest, to
quantitative ones, competition, making it, and privatism, as well as
the demoralizing pursuit of mindless consumerism and trivia force-fed
us by the mass media. Just about every parent and teacher I know has,
in one way or another, expressed the concern that they cannot compete
with the marketing techniques of the mass media, particularly
television. They are worried about the potential consequences of the
growing acquisitiveness, the indulgence, and the self-centeredness of
children. You hear this from conservatives, liberals, and moderates.
Small wonder. The average eighteen-year-old in the United States has
seen more than 380,000 television commercials. We haven't begun to
comprehend the inherent brutality of this media saturation on our
children's psyches.
Materialism and assumptions of entitlement breed boredom, cynicism,
drug abuse, and crime for kicks. Passivity, isolation, and depression
come with television and on-line addiction. Ignorance, fear, and
prejudice come from insularity and exclusivity. A national and local
effort to promote community service by young people is the best
antidote to these social ills. The goals are inclusive and nourishing;
they seek to honor diversity, to protect the environment, and to enrich
our Nation's educational, social, and economic policies so that they
enhance human dignity. On a personal level, volunteering, the very act
of caring and doing, makes a substantial difference in our individual
lives because it nourishes the moral intelligence required for critical
judgment and mature behavior.
Dr. Seuss reminded us in The Lorax that ``unless someone like you
cares a whole awful lot nothing is going to get better. It's not.''
September 11, 2001, as tragic and traumatic as it was, can serve as a
transformative event for the American people. We responded to this
crisis with introspection, generosity, and caring. Now is not the time
to push the snooze button and return to civic fatuity and complacency.
Just as we marshaled our forces and mobilized our capacities to
confront a foreign enemy, we can take action and confront our domestic
problems and conflicts on the home front. In the real world, we know
that taking ordinary initiatives can make a difference. It is within
our power to move beyond a disaster and to create new opportunities.
What it comes down to is assuming personal responsibility. If we decide
to become involved in voluntary efforts, we can restore idealism,
realism, responsiveness, and vitality to our institutions and our
communities.
At her memorial service, it was said of Eleanor Roosevelt, the most
influential American woman of the twentieth century, ``she would rather
light a candle then curse the darkness.'' What was true for her then is
true for us now. The choice to make a difference is ours.
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