[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 31, Number 41 (Monday, October 16, 1995)]
[Pages 1821-1824]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Swearing-In Ceremony for AmeriCorps Volunteers

October 12, 1995

    If she hasn't made the case, there's nothing for me to say. 
[Laughter]
    Thank you, Michelle Johnson Harvey, for that remarkable statement. 
And thank you

[[Page 1822]]

and all of your colleagues here for your dedication to your country, to 
your community and your participation in AmeriCorps. Thank you, Don 
Doran, for the work that you have permitted AmeriCorps to do with you 
and your school in Atlanta.
    And I thank Senator Harris Wofford for his willingness to take up 
this service at this important time in the history of our country and 
the history of AmeriCorps. We just swore him in--the Vice President 
swore him in over in the Oval Office with Mrs. Wofford and his entire 
family and his extended family of friends. And he pointed out that at 
least I had told him what I expected him to do. He said that once before 
he was sworn in in the Oval Office, and President Kennedy swore him in 
and then told him what his job was going to be. [Laughter] So I feel 
that after 30 years we're at least making some progress in the 
Government's obligation to fully disclose to its--[laughter]--public 
servants what they are expected to do.
    I want to thank Jim Joseph, the Chairman of the Board, who is about 
to become our distinguished Ambassador to South Africa, and all the 
other supporters of the AmeriCorps program and the other volunteer 
efforts that are here.
    And I want to say, of course, a special word of thanks to my friend 
of 25 years, Eli Segal, for the remarkable job he did in creating 
AmeriCorps and getting it off to a good start. Thank you for a brilliant 
job.
    I want to thank the supporters of AmeriCorps in the Congress, 
including those who are here, Senator Jeffords from Vermont, Congressman 
Sawyer from Ohio, Congresswoman Karen McCarthy from Kansas City. She got 
one of her constituents up here, and I saw her bursting with pride. 
Congressman Green from Texas and Congressman Tim Roemer from Indiana. 
We're glad to see all of you. And we thank you for your support.
    A year ago in one of my proudest moments as President, I challenged 
20,000 citizens to join us in a new American adventure, rooted in our 
most fundamental values of personal responsibility, educational 
opportunities, service to others and commitment to community. I asked 
those 20,000 Americans to put their values into action through 
AmeriCorps, because service is a spark to rekindle the spirit of 
democracy in an age of uncertainty. Well, the times may be uncertain 
because they're changing so rapidly, but I am certain that the flame of 
democracy is burning brighter all across America today because of people 
like Michelle Johnson Harvey and her friends who helped to close those 
crack houses and give those children safe streets to walk, and because 
of the thousands and thousands of other AmeriCorps volunteers and the 
many thousands more whom they recruited to work to build houses, to 
immunize children, to educate, to help to solve all the community 
problems that are being faced at the grassroots level.
    You know, it is true that this idea was consciously born as a 
nonbureaucratic, grassroots, community-based, totally nonpartisan idea. 
I became enamored of the idea of community service because I saw what it 
could do as a Governor and because I was working with a group in the 
late eighties and early nineties, the Democratic Leadership Council, and 
we devised a proposal. And Senator Nunn, who just a couple of days ago 
announced his retirement from the Congress, and some others, when 
President Bush was in office, proposed a pilot project. And President 
Bush was good enough to sign the bill that passed, and we did begin 
this.
    And then when I ran for President, I saw all over America these 
community groups like the City Year group in Boston, which is now 
spreading across the country like wildfire. I saw them everywhere, these 
young people full of energy and ideas, across racial lines, across 
income lines, people who had never shared any common experiences before 
coming together and literally creating a new future for people one-on-
one and for communities and solving problems that we could never begin 
to solve here in Washington, DC.
    And I was determined that if I ever had the chance to do it as 
President, I would try to create a national commitment to community 
service all across the country that would give our young people a chance 
to give something back to their communities and to advance their 
education at the same time. That is what we are doing.

[[Page 1823]]

    At a time when, once again, we are asking ourselves whether we are 
too divided in our perceptions of reality and our attitudes toward all 
the things that are going on in America to be a real community, the 
members of AmeriCorps put the lie to all of that. They show us once 
again that if you can just get good people together, no matter how 
different their backgrounds are, and you give them a chance to share 
common values and to work on a common problem, or to seize a common 
opportunity, and you give them a chance to do it together, day-in and 
day-out, they will change everybody's preconceived notions of what is 
possible in America. They will prove, once and for all, again in this 
age, that the American idea is a universal idea; that the notion of 
personal responsibility, the notion of opportunity for everybody, the 
notion that we're all better and stronger when we work together than 
when we are divided, that those things are universal; that they are 
rooted in a fundamental truth about human nature, and that there is no 
power like it anywhere. That's what these young people in AmeriCorps 
prove day-in and day-out.
    I'm so grateful for all of the things they've done. They've fought 
forest fires in Idaho. They've helped people after floods in Houston. 
They've built homes in Miami. They've, as you heard, helped to raise 
reading scores dramatically in Kentucky, a model I hope will be copied 
in schools all across America. They've helped to prevent lead poisoning 
in Portland. They've helped troubled youths to care for people in 
nursing homes in Boston. They certainly came to the rescue after 
Oklahoma City, some of them in truly remarkable ways. They simply put 
themselves on the line to prove that things are still possible in 
America.
    No one could ever meet these young people and listen to their 
stories and continue to be cynical about the prospect of Americans 
working together. I met a young woman named Velaida ``Cricket'' Shepard 
when we had our economic conference in Portland, Oregon, last June. And 
she was trying to talk about AmeriCorps and she began to cry. She almost 
couldn't get through her statement. Michelle didn't have that problem. 
[Laughter] I thought she was going to declare for President right here 
in the middle of her speech. [Laughter]
    But this young woman talked about getting up at 6 o'clock every 
morning so she could make sure a young girl she was mentoring got to 
school on time; so she could make sure that no family problem this child 
had--nothing would keep that child from school; so she could make sure 
that no amount of disappointment in her own life, no amount of personal 
injury that child had suffered, emotional injury, would keep her from 
becoming what she ought to be.
    That young girl, who was troubled, was marked for failure, has now 
become a role model in her school. And at the same time, ``Cricket'' 
Shepard has gone on to other challenges to help other young people do 
the same, and AmeriCorps is helping her to get an education at Portland 
State University.
    This is the kind of thing that we ought to be doing, folks. No one 
knows here in Washington what the really most important problem is in 
Kansas City, but the people in Kansas City know. No one wakes up every 
morning in Washington thinking about whether, in a given community, they 
need most to close crack houses, or build Habitat for Humanity homes, or 
keep beaches clean, or tutor students. But the people in those 
communities know.
    I have been overwhelmed by the broad and deep support for AmeriCorps 
from people from all walks of life. We know that it is not only 
consistent with our values and a good thing to do, it also happens to be 
cost-efficient and it works. We know that from independent economists, 
from evaluators, even the GAO says that it more than pays its way and 
actually costs less than we had originally estimated it would.
    So I say to you today that as we debate this great national question 
of how to balance the budget, we can balance the budget without turning 
our backs on these young people. We can balance the budget without 
forgetting the fundamental lesson, which is that if you can create a 
national movement with no bureaucracy that explodes human energy at the 
grassroots level, you can put the lie to all this business about how we 
are bound to be divided by race, by region, by income, by walk of life, 
just by letting them live and

[[Page 1824]]

do what they know to do. And that is what we ought to do.
    AmeriCorps should be continued for far more than the some 25,000 
young people that will be involved in it this year, far more than the 
2,000 communities in all 50 States that will be benefited, far more than 
the many, many tens of thousands of other volunteers, that they will 
make it possible to work because they will organize them; it should be 
continued if, for no other reason, that it proves that the American idea 
is alive and well and can meet the challenges of the 21st century, to 
restore our values, to strengthen us at the grassroots level. It can be 
a shining symbol that there is no need for cynicism, no need for 
defeatism, and no need for tolerance of division in the United States of 
America. That's why we should continue AmeriCorps.
    So I would like to begin this next year of AmeriCorps by asking all 
of the members who are here and all of those who are with us via 
satellite in Kansas City to join me in taking the AmeriCorps pledge.
    Please stand and repeat after me, if you're not all standing. Stand 
up--it'll be good for all of us to do it. [Laughter] This would be a 
good pledge for the citizens of the United States:
    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 
conflict, I will seek common ground. Faced with adversity, I will 
persevere. I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond. I 
am an AmeriCorps member. And I am going to get things done.

[The AmeriCorps volunteers repeated each line of the pledge after the 
President.]

    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 2:40 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Michelle Johnson Harvey, 
AmeriCorps member, and Don Doran, principal, Benteen Elementary School.