[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book II)]
[October 11, 2000]
[Pages 2130-2133]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to AmeriCorps Volunteers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
October 11, 2000

    Let's give Ardelia another hand. 
[Applause] She was great, wasn't she? I thought she was great. Good job.
    I also want to say to all of you how grateful I am to be here and 
how grateful I am to Pennsylvania's own Harris Wofford for doing such a great job in heading our Corporation 
for National Service. He's worked in the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. 
He's worked for Presidents from Kennedy to Clinton. He worked with 
Martin Luther King, and he's still helping people walk their road to 
freedom. Thank you, Senator Harris Wofford, for everything you have 
done.
    Eight years ago about this time I was crossing the country with Vice 
President Gore, talking about all the ideas I had to try to change our 
Nation, if the people would vote for me for President. Eight years later 
one of the ideas that always got an applause line on the stump, national 
service, giving young people a chance to serve their countries in their 
communities and giving them some funds so they could further their 
education, it is reality. You are that reality, and you have changed 
America for the better. I am very, very grateful to all of you for that.
    Today, people who wonder what national service is can hear it in the 
swing of a hundred hammers helping families to build homes, see it in 
the sight of a thousand saplings taking root on a charred mountainside, 
burned in a fire, and hear the sound of a million children

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learning to read. You get things done, and I thank you for that.
    It is quite appropriate for us to meet in Philadelphia to reaffirm 
our commitment to national service, not only because of the 
extraordinary effort made by the State of Pennsylvania and this great 
city to have a disproportionate number of young people involved in 
community service through AmeriCorps programs but also because it was 
here that our Founders declared our independence and, in so doing, 
expressed a commitment not only to the individual liberty and 
independence of all of us alone but said that we could only fulfill our 
own desires and our own personal dreams if we committed ourselves to 
forming ``a more perfect Union.''
    Every day you work, every person you help, you help America become 
that more perfect Union of our Founders' dreams.
    All across the country, AmeriCorps volunteers are serving as a 
catalyst for community action. Studies show that every one of you 
generates on average a dozen more volunteers, and that adds up. Over the 
past 6 years, not only have over 150,000 young Americans served in their 
communities in AmeriCorps--and, I might add, we had more AmeriCorps 
volunteers in 5 years than the Peace Corps did in its first 20--you are 
really moving to change America. But even more than that--listen to 
this--AmeriCorps members have recruited, trained, or supervised more 
than 2.5 million volunteers in community projects.
    In Pennsylvania, older volunteers for the National Senior Service 
Corps serve as foster grandparents to 9,000 children. Thousands of RSVP 
volunteers are passing on their wisdom to a younger generation. In 
Philadelphia, nearly a thousand AmeriCorps members have been working 
with local organizations, running after-school programs, restoring 
parts, helping Habitat for Humanity to build homes, bridging the digital 
divide in poor communities and poor schools, engaging other young people 
in community service.
    We know now from experience that when young people volunteer in 
their communities, they're less likely to get in trouble and much more 
likely to succeed in school. That's why the work of AmeriCorps 
volunteers with our young people, helping them to succeed, is perhaps 
our most important mission.
    In 1996 I issued the America Reads challenge. I asked AmeriCorps and 
college students across our country to join in a crusade for childhood 
literacy, to make sure that every 8-year-old in our country could read--
read well before being promoted. Thanks to AmeriCorps members like 
Ardelia, hundreds of thousands of children have now been tutored, 
mentored, or enrolled in after-school programs, and 1,000 colleges have 
given us their students to help go into our elementary schools to help 
teach our kids to read. Thank you very, very, very much.
    In a profoundly inspiring effort, members of the National School and 
Community Corps, CityYear, VISTA, and AmeriCorps have helped 
Philadelphia schools expand their pioneering program for student 
service. As part of this initiative, 11th and 12th graders are trained 
to tutor second graders one-on-one in after-school reading programs. The 
students that do the tutoring say they learn just as much as the 
youngsters they teach.
    What I'd like to see is to have this done in every school system in 
America. I think if all the juniors and seniors in America were 
committed to making sure all the second graders in America could read by 
the time they got out of the second grade, it would revolutionize 
education in America. That is the symbol that Philadelphia represents to 
our future.
    Today I'm releasing an independent study that shows that these 
efforts are working. Over the past school year, AmeriCorps members 
served in programs tutoring more than 100,000 students in grades one 
through three. Sample tests given at the beginning and the end of the 
school year showed that children's reading skills in the programs where 
the AmeriCorps volunteers tutored improved significantly and exceeded 
significantly expectations.
    In one case, an AmeriCorps member in Atlanta set out to recruit 
eight college students to tutor struggling kids 4 hours a week. Today, 
that program has 250 volunteers in 30 schools. Seventy percent of the 
second and third graders participating in the program have increased 
their test scores--listen to this--by at least two reading levels, two 
grade levels.
    So we actually have some objective evidence that the enthusiasm that 
you all displayed when Harris called each of 
your projects and you stood up and cheered actually is making a 
difference, a positive difference in the lives of individual Americans 
and, in so doing I might add, bringing us together across lines that 
divide us.

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    One of the most important things about AmeriCorps I think is that it 
gives the volunteers, who come from all different backgrounds, all 
different races, all different religious backgrounds, a chance to meet 
and work with and get to know people who are different from them, to 
tear down barriers of distrust and misunderstanding and old-fashioned 
ignorance, and build a genuine American community.
    You know, I think it's a great thing that America is so diverse and 
growing more diverse. It makes it more interesting. But it's also 
important to recognize that, as we celebrate our differences, we have to 
reaffirm our common humanity. You look anywhere in the world today where 
they're having trouble, and chances are they can celebrate their 
differences, but they're having trouble affirming their common humanity, 
and misunderstanding occurs.
    If America wants to be a force for good and peace and freedom in all 
these places we see today--from the Middle East to Northern Ireland to 
the Balkans to Africa where they're having tribal conflicts--we have to 
first be good at home. You are helping us to be good at home and do the 
right thing.
    So it turns out this idea that was just sort of an applause line in 
my '92 campaign speech, it was a pretty good idea after all. [Laughter] 
You proved it. We know it works. We have made it completely nonpartisan. 
We've tried to take it completely out of the normal day-to-day arguments 
of American politics, because it seems to be, as Harris said, the 
quintessential American idea.
    That's why it is so important that the Congress this year rise above 
politics and reauthorize the Corporation for National Service with the 
necessary funding for a robust AmeriCorps.
    We've succeeded out in the country, as you heard Senator Wofford 
say. We have a letter from 49 of the Nation's 50 Governors. That's 98 
percent. You don't get 98 percent of people agreeing on anything. So 
we've got 98 percent of the Governors saying, ``Please reauthorize 
AmeriCorps.'' Governor Ridge says it's a vital resource because you get 
things done in Pennsylvania.
    I have talked with the congressional leaders about this. I hope they 
will follow the Governors' lead and act in a bipartisan spirit. I came 
to Philadelphia today because sometimes, every now and then, no matter 
how bipartisan an issue is out in the country, something happens when 
you cross the border into the District of Columbia, and somehow it 
becomes a partisan issue, even though no one in America thinks it is.
    So I came out here to you because I want people to see--in 
Washington, DC, I want them to see your faces tonight, I want them to 
hear your cheers tonight. I want them to know about your good deeds 
tonight. I want them to see in your lives that AmeriCorps does get 
things done, and I want them to get something done to reauthorize this 
bill.
    A generation ago, Senator Robert Kennedy, who inspired so many young 
people when I was your age, spoke of the power of the single person to 
affect change. And he said that each person and each act of bravery or 
kindness or service sent out a ripple of hope, but that together those 
ripples could become a tidal wave that could tear down the worst wall of 
oppression and break down the biggest and sternest barriers to change. 
You are the living embodiment of those ripples of hope, and you are 
changing America in profound ways. You do it in the work that you do. 
You do it in the way that you do it. You do it in the way your lives are 
changed when you leave AmeriCorps and you go on about the rest of your 
lives.
    We are all in your debt. And so I hope, for goodness sakes, that the 
Congress will give us the funding and the reauthorization we need so 
that hundreds of thousands of more young people can have this experience 
over the next 5 years, and millions and millions more of our fellow 
Americans of all ages, beginning with our youngest children, will be the 
better for it.
    Thank you very, very much. [Applause] Now, wait. Wait, wait. I've 
got a job to do. I have to swear in the newest AmeriCorps class in the 
United States. So I want them to stand up, all the new class. Stand up, 
please, all the new class, people who have not been sworn in. Anybody 
that has not been sworn in, stand up. All right. Raise your right hand, 
and repeat the pledge after me.

[At this point, the new members repeated the oath after the President.]

     I will get things done for America, to make our people safer, 
smarter, and healthier. I will bring Americans together to strengthen 
our communities. Faced with apathy, I will take action. Faced with 
conflicts, I will seek common ground. Faced with adversity, I will 
persevere. I will carry this commitment with me this year

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and beyond. I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.

Note: The President spoke at 4:13 p.m. at Memorial Hall. In his remarks, 
he referred to AmeriCorps volunteer Ardelia Norwood-Ross, who introduced 
the President; Harris Wofford, chief executive officer, Corporation for 
National Service; and Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.