    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [April 5, 1997]
    [Pages 394-396]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    The President's Radio Address
    April 5, 1997

        Good morning. I want to talk with you today about how we can make
    this glorious spring a season of service all across America. As I have
    said many times, the era of big Government may be over, but the era of
    big challenges for our Nation is surely not. Citizen service is the main
    way we recognize that we are responsible for one another. It is the very
    American idea

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    that we meet our challenges not through heavyhanded Government or as
    isolated individuals but as members of a true community, with all of us
    working together.
        On April 27th through 29th, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, we
    will be convening an historic Presidents' Summit on Service. I will be
    joined by President Bush, General Colin Powell, by every living former
    President or his representative, by other prominent Americans, including
    former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros and Lynda Robb. Every person,
    business, or organization represented at the summit will have already
    committed to take specific steps to help to serve our children and to
    rebuild our communities. Our mission is nothing less than to spark a
    renewed national sense of obligation, a new sense of duty, a new season
    of service.
        I hope that many activities in the weeks leading up to this
    wonderful event will make all Americans think about the duty all of us
    owe to one another. Citizen service can take many shapes. It can mean
    volunteering nights or on weekends in a religious group or neighborhood
    association or devoting full years of your life to service like those
    the Peace Corps or the Jesuit Volunteer Corps members do.
        Over the past 4 years, we have worked to harness this citizen energy
    in so many ways. I am especially proud of AmeriCorps, the national
    service program I proposed when I ran for President, that we launched
    the very next year. Since its creation, 50,000 young people have earned
    college tuition by serving their communities, with the basic bargain of
    getting the opportunity to go to college in return for giving something
    back to their friends and neighbors.
        The success of AmeriCorps shows that service can help to meet our
    most pressing social needs, from renewing our cities to protecting our
    environment, to immunizing poor children, to giving them mentors and
    someone to look up to. And that service often leads to more service; a
    typical AmeriCorps member trains or recruits a dozen or more community
    volunteers.
        To focus the American people on the importance of this summit and
    the urgency of service, I'll issue a proclamation designating the week
    of April 13th through 19th as National Service Week in America. During
    that week, over a million young people will participate in 3,000 events
    across our Nation, cleaning up neighborhoods and working with children.
        I've asked the thousands of AmeriCorps alumni and returned Peace
    Corps volunteers to participate as well, reaching out to youth in their
    communities, speaking in schools, recruiting volunteers, and teaching a
    new generation about the power of service. I'm very pleased that some of
    them have joined our Peace Corps Director, Mark Gearan, here with me
    today.
        I hope that they will teach that citizen service cannot be a pursuit
    for just a week or a month, that the ethic of service must extend
    throughout a lifetime. No one is too young to serve. As a recent study
    by Brandeis University shows, when you begin to serve at a young age,
    schoolwork improves, and there is a good chance you will continue to
    serve in the years to come. It's a good habit that's hard to break. And
    no one is too old to serve, either. But we must find even more ways to
    encourage our young people to begin to serve.
        I'm joined here today by some young men and women from Maryland,
    along with that State's Lieutenant Governor, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend,
    who has been a leader in making Maryland the first State in our Nation
    to require that every student perform some service as a condition of
    high school graduation. One of the students meeting with me gathered
    food and clothing for the needy; another, dyslexic herself, taught
    disabled students; another tutors young children at a Head Start center.
        Today I challenge schools and communities in every State to make
    service a part of the curriculum in high school and even in middle
    school. There are many creative ways to do this, including giving
    students credit, making service part of the curriculum, putting service
    on a student's transcript or even requiring it, as Maryland does. This
    week, the National Association of Secondary School Principals agreed to
    introduce service learning to more than 2 million students, and I hope
    they'll work to find even more creative ways to involve service. States
    and schools, of course, should be free to decide this for themselves.
    But every young American should be taught the joy and duty of serving
    and should learn it at the moment when it will have the most enduring
    impact on the rest of their lives.
        Two weeks ago, applications went out to high school principals all
    around our Nation, inviting them to select a student in that school who
    has performed outstanding service, thereby making them eligible for a
    $1,000 scholarship.

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    Under this new initiative, which we launched last year, our National
    Government will put up $500 for each student if it is matched by local
    communities. Already, a host of civic organizations, including the
    Veterans of Foreign Wars, Moose International, the Lions Clubs, the U.S.
    Jaycees, have accepted our challenge to work with their local chapters
    to provide matching funds for these scholarships. And public servants
    from agencies like the Agriculture Department will continue to work as
    partners with these schools, sending volunteers to work with teachers
    and acting as mentors to the students.
        I hope all of you will join in the spirit of the Presidents' Summit
    on Service and take part in the National Week of Service beginning April
    13th. Service is in our deepest national tradition. Millions of young
    Americans in my generation were inspired by the call to service issued
    so often from this very office by President Kennedy. Now it is up to all
    of us to take up President Kennedy's challenges, remembering, as he
    said, that every person can make a difference, and every person must
    try.
        Thanks for listening.

    Note: The President spoke at 10:06 a.m. from the Oval Office at the
    White House. In his remarks, he referred to Gen. Colin L. Powell, USA
    (ret.), former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Lynda Robb, wife of
    Senator Charles S. Robb. The National Service and Volunteer Week
    proclamation of April 11 is listed in Appendix D at the end of this
    volume.