By Jane Eisner
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Why serve?
John Bridgeland repeated the question with the ease of a preacher's refrain. He was preaching, and this was his choir. As director of President Bush's national service initiative, he was in Philadelphia on Friday to motivate and congratulate the thousands who had gathered for the annual convention of City Year, a service program for young people.
Bridgeland couldn't have asked his question at a more propitious time. National service is coming of age — supported by a popular president and many in Congress, appealing to a new generation, and catching a wave of patriotism generated by the cataclysm in September.
"Service is a duty associated with living in a free society," Bridgeland told the sea of City Year corps members, dressed in their trademark yellow-and-red jackets and representing their 14 home communities with all the pride and exuberance of delegates to a political convention.
He ticked off other reasons, spiced with quotes from Aristotle, Thomas Jefferson, the Kennedys. Service is part of a happy life. Service is a way to show love of country, and in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, to protect the homeland.
But there was something missing from the stirring speech, and from some of the political rhetoric surrounding this now-popular concept. National service, as it matures and strengthens, must produce more than individual fulfillment for those involved and temporary assistance for communities in need.
It must lead to an appetite for substantive change, a commitment to address underlying social problems that have created the need for service in the first place.
Ira Harkavy, the University of Pennsylvania professor who has long championed community partnerships, put it best during a policy forum on Friday: "It's not enough to serve soup in a soup kitchen. We have to work toward ending the conditions that make people hungry."
So bravo to the City Year corps members who teach and mentor in overcrowded, understaffed public schools. But when their year is over, the debilitating conditions remain. It's not enough to apply the bandage; the wound demands treatment.
National service will truly be service to the nation if it produces a cadre of informed leaders committed to actually improving the nation's schools. Or at the very least, to voting in the next school board election.
Bravo to the high school students who volunteer in overcrowded, understaffed nursing homes. But when the young people move on, as young people will do, the elderly remain, trapped in an unresponsive health-care system that rewards only those who can pay and pays little to those who actually provide the care.
So I'd call national service a success if some of those high school students eventually work toward addressing the plight of the elderly — or, at the very least, prompting a healthy debate on prescription-drug plans.
Bush's proposals take a step in the right direction. His Citizen Service Act, now wending its way through Congress, would expand AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps and create new avenues for volunteers. He also has put Bridgeland in charge of a task force to find ways to boost civic education.
But budget restraints and an aversion to federal mandates will limit these initiatives. In June 1966, the Peace Corps had 15,000 members; it now is down to 6,300.
Bush is proposing to double the number in five years — an improvement, yes, but hardly a sweeping one. Especially if you consider that when President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps, he hoped it would one day employ 100,000 Americans every year — who not only would apply talent and energy to problems overseas but also would return with unparalleled knowledge and commitment to tackle problems at home.
Personally, I think that too much of the call to national service has been shaped as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks. It must be more than that, or the passion will taper off as the memories fade.
Why serve now? Not just to feel good, but to do good. To fix, but also to change.
