[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.