SERVICENATION: Summit calls all generations to serve
Posted 09/12/2008 - 6:26am
The tremendous potential of what organizers are calling “experienced Americans” was on display at the ServiceNation Summit, which kicked off a year-long campaign to vastly expand opportunities for national and community service.
The Summit opened September 11 with a presidential candidates’ forum featuring Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, who on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks took a day off from active campaigning to talk about the role of citizenship and service in America. Both candidates promised national service initiatives. Read about the details in The Washington Post.
In an historic shift, the Summit’s call to action to tackle America’s greatest social challenges is directed not only to young people just out of school, but also to older adults looking to make a difference after the end of their midlife careers, or to use a year or two of national service as a transition to a longer-term encore career.
“We’ve had 75 years of presidential leadership on national service since FDR, but most of the calls have been targeted to the young,” said John Bridgeland, CEO of Civic Enterprises, former Director of the USA Freedom Corps, and an organizer of the summit. “It’s more than high time to have a call to service to call these large, longest-living generations.”
ServiceNation plans to press the next president and Congress to enact legislation by September 11, 2009, to engage 100 million Americans each year in community service by 2012, up from 61 million today. By 2020, ServiceNation hopes for full-time service opportunities for one million Americans.
Those in support of the summit’s goals can sign a “Declaration of Service” on the ServiceNation website. Organizers are hoping to get a large number of signatures quickly to make a powerful statement of support.
National service legislation, introduced by Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, includes older adults in new efforts to address education, climate change and other pressing issues. It include provisions for “Encore Fellows,” year-long positions to enable older adults to put their experience to work to meet critical needs in education, health care, government, nonprofits and faith-based organizations.
ServiceNation is coordinating thousands of volunteer activities in a national Day of Action on September 27. Experience Corps projects around the country are planning activities for the Day of Action.
ServiceNation is a new coalition of 110 organizations, including Civic Ventures, which publishes Encore.org. All are dedicated to strengthening our democracy and solving problems through civic engagement.
Among the 600 people at the summit were leaders from government, academia, the arts, business and not-for-profits, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City; California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; Senator Hillary Clinton; Martin Luther King III; Bobby Kennedy, Jr.; Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan; and Caroline Kennedy. Key sponsors were Be the Change, City Year, Civic Enterprises and the Points of Light Institute.
The Summit was presented by Time magazine, AARP and Target and was underwritten by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation.
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McCain Favors Community Service????
Excuse me but wasn’t it just a few short days ago at the Republican Convention that McCain’s own Sarah Palin smugly scoffed at the very idea of community service? Something like "being governor is kind of like being a community organizer, except you have actual responsibilities."
Presumably then, neither McCain, Palin nor any of their thousands of cheering fans have the slightest respect for the tireless efforts of those making a commitment to service. He has no business appearing on any stage anywhere talking about the role of service in America. I find this unbelievably offensive.
Talk about lipstick on a pig!
Issues Running for Election
We supporters of national service have lots to cheer as we expect Senators Obama and McCain to support national service. In a partisan world issues run for election. National service will advance after the election because both candidates are expected to support the idea and find ways to make service operational.
After tonight we will parse the differences between McCain and Obama. But the main point is whatever your electoral choice (mine is Obama-Biden) after the election we work to hold the winner accountable and advance the idea of national service.
As a veteran issues campaigner and politician I take great joy when both leading candidates endorse an idea I care about. I also know that the hard work will continue after the election. The work we do to advance service on September 27 in Service Action will further reinforce what both candidates know and hopefully articulate: let’s change the public discourse to get beyond self and recognize our nation is a community in which each of us stands with the other.
David Cohen
Why further serve people who exclude me from participating?
I have spent my first career (33 plus years) as a public servant to
the people of the fifty United States, living in Washington, DC. As a
result, I have been excluded for 33 plus years from voting and
representation as a native citizen of this country, solely because I
chose to live in Washington DC, which has no representation in either
the US House or the US Senate (in spite of the fact that it has a
larger population than Wyoming). Repeated pleas to change this
situation have fallen on deaf ears for over three decades, in fact for
over two centuries (since 1801).
For my encore career(s), I think I’ll take my pension,my
investments, and my other skills, wealth and resources abroad, where
they will be useful and appreciated.