Third World America - Arianna Huffington [83]
President Obama doesn’t need to convince the American people of the value of service; his challenge is finding a way to direct that national impulse into an ongoing effort to deal with the dark days we find ourselves in. He’s got the right words: “When you serve,” he said during a commencement speech at Notre Dame, “it doesn’t just improve your community, it makes you a part of your community.126 It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens—when people set aside their differences, even for a moment, to work in common effort toward a common goal; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another—then all things are possible.”
But it is going to take more than soaring rhetoric. Every president pays lip service to service. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, President Bush declared, “We have much to do, and much to ask of the American people.”127 A month later he echoed that theme, saying simply: “America is sacrifice.”128 Of course, the sum total of his idea of sacrifice turned out to be shopping, going to Disney World, and offering tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.129
And President Obama has yet to turn his words into action and follow through on his promise to emulate FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps, JFK’s Peace Corps, and LBJ’s Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). The role that service can—and must—play in addressing the urgent needs our country faces is all the more important among the nation’s young people who were so galvanized by the ’08 campaign, but who will now find it increasingly hard to get a job or to afford to stay in school.
And the demand among young people is growing. In 2009, for example, Teach for America received 35,000 applications for 4,100 positions.130 In 2008, 75,000 AmeriCorps members mobilized and led 2.2 million community volunteers.131 The Serve America Act, introduced by Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, will increase the number of full-time service positions (based on the AmeriCorps model) from 75,000 to 250,000.132 These jobs can have an exponential impact on the recruitment of volunteers.
Among our senior citizens, the payoff from service has also been remarkable. Approximately 280,000 special needs children were mentored by 30,000 Senior Corps “Foster Grandparents” in 2007.133 Eighty-one percent of the children helped by the Foster Grandparents program showed improved academic performance, 90 percent showed improved self-image, and 59 percent reported a reduction in risky behavior.134 And students working with an Experience Corps tutor showed a 60 percent improvement in reading skills over students who were not in the program.135 These volunteers use their skills to help others even while they’re dealing with their own harsh economic realities.
“FIND YOUR OWN CALCUTTA”
When people used to offer to join Mother Teresa in her “wonderful work in Calcutta,” she would often respond: “Find your own Calcutta.”136 That is, care for those in need where you are. Thousands are doing this—finding their own Calcuttas—all across America.
Geoffrey Canada provides a template of how to do it.137 Ever since he returned to Harlem with a master’s from Harvard and a third-degree black belt, he’s been fighting a block-by-block and child-by-child battle against poverty, drugs, gangs, and indifference. Through the Harlem Children’s Zone, he’s turned around lives while reminding America that we have, in too many ways, and in too many places, failed our children.
The nonprofit serves a ninety-seven-block section of Harlem, providing the guidance and personal support that the children there have been missing. Visiting his projects is like going from one healing outpost to another, including a baby college (where the parents of infants are taught the value of reading to their children and of avoiding corporal punishment), a technology center, and an employment center.
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