Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
147872959
label
National Service
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
147872959
contentType
document
title
National Service
citationUrl
collections
Records of the Office of the Public Liaison (Clinton Administration)
Suzanna Valdez's Files
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
147872959
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
otherTitles
42-t-5721331-20130661F-035-014-2018
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
85a9445b1612c68c
ocrText
FOIA Number: 2013-0661-F
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
Subgroup/Office of Origin:
Public Liaison
Series/Staff Member:
Suzanna Valdez
Subseries:
OA/ID Number:
4268
FolderID:
Folder Title:
National Service
Stack:
Row:
Section:
Shelf:
Position:
S
29
5
5
3
(-17 94 12:47 FROM: PUB LIAISON
2026064926
TO: 2024562362
PAGE 02
MERICORPE
*
A
AmeriCorps National Service
CORPORATION
October 17, 1994
FOR NATIONAL
SERVICE
Dear Friend:
You are invited to attend a briefing at the White House
about funding opportunities now available through President
Clinton's new domestic Peace Corps Program called "AmeriCorps."
The meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 19, 1994 at 4:30pm
in Room 472 of the Old Executive Office Building.
Joining you will be senior staff from the Corporation and
the White House who will provide a brief program overview and
then entertain discussion so that we may learn more about your
organization.
As you may know, the National and Community Service Trust
Act of 1993 authorized $1.5 billion through 1996 to assist
states, nonprofit organizations, Indian tribes, and institutions
of higher education in creating a full- or part- time service
program that engages participants in meaningful, community-based
service addressing unmet human, environmental, public safety, and
educational needs. AmeriCorps members may serve before, during,
or after college, and upon successful completion of a term of
service, they will receive an educational award of up to $4,725
or twice that amount for two years of service. The educational
award may be used to help finance their college education or
vocational training, or to pay back their student loans.
Please RSVP with David Premo at (202) 606-5000 extension
278. For security purposes, we ask that you provide your full
name and birth date. Questions should be directed to Gloria
Johnson, Director of Constituent Relations, at extension 234.
We look forward to seeing you.
Sincerely,
Eli J Segal
Eli Segal
1100 Vermont Avenue, NW
CEO
Washington, DC 20525
Telephone 202-606-5000
Fax 202-606-4906
Gutting Things Done.
AmeriCorps, National Service
Learn and Serve America
National Senior Service Corpe
6/16
nec
OFFICE OF PUBLIC LIAISON
ROUTING SLIP
DATE:
Twel6,1993
FROM:
Danny
TO:
Amy Zisook
Doris Matsui
Andrew Morin
Flo McAfee
Chris Lin
Howie Davis
Dan Wexler
Marilyn DiGiacobbe
Dana Wyckoff
Mike Lux
Paul Jackson
Wendy Nishikawa
Debbie Fine
Ruby Moy
Steve Hilton
Suzama
Other
THE ATTACHED IS FOR YOUR:
INFORMATION
ADVICE
ACTION
COMMENTS:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
FACT SHEET
NATIONAL SERVICE TRUST ACT OF 1993
The "National Service Trust Act of 1993" is innovative public policy founded on
traditional American values: offering educational opportunity, demanding personal
responsibility, and building the American community. In affirming these values, the initiative
also rejects big bureaucracy -- reinventing government to unleash the initiative of the
American people.
The President's support for service extends from the youngest elementary school
students to our oldest citizens, and includes everything from part-time volunteer activities to
full-time public service jobs.
The President's initiative will:
Build the American community through a new domestic Peace Corps that brings
Americans together to tackle pressing national problems.
Offer educational opportunity and reward individual responsibility by providing
educational awards to hundreds of thousands of Americans who serve our country.
Reinvent government by streamlining Federal bureaucracies, relying on locally driven
initiatives, and creating flexibility for students and competition among programs.
The Act will establish a Corporation for National Service that will offer Americans
who do vital work in the national service initiative an educational award.
The Corporation will establish quality criteria and require measurable impacts, but
within these bounds, communities will be able to design programs that meet their own
pressing needs. Programs will be expected to educate their participants both in the particular
skills their service demands and in the civic responsibility that our democracy requires. In all
respects, the Act is designed to build partnerships -- among Federal Government, State
governments, and the private sector; and within communities, among the schools, businesses,
and civic organizations that seek to fight common problems. Assistance will be distributed on
a competitive basis and no program will have a right to funding, but a wide variety of
organizations will have a chance to establish programs that serve our country.
1
Definition of National Service
Meets unmet educational, environmental, human, or public safety needs.
Improves the life of the participant, through citizenship education and training.
Does not displace or duplicate the functions of existing workers.
Organization
To reduce waste and promote an entrepreneurial government culture, a new
government Corporation for National Service will be established, combining the
Commission on National and Community Service and ACTION.
While maintaining existing programs such as VISTA, the new program makes
investments in new initiatives; neither the Corporation nor the State commissions will
operate them.
A small bipartisan Board will share power with a Chairperson.
Flexible and quality-driven personnel policies will include pay-for-performance and a
7-year limit on most tenures.
The Corporation may solicit and accept private contributions.
At the state level, commissions on national service will be established to mirror and
cooperate with the Federal Corporation.
Like the Corporation Board, commissions will be composed of bipartisan members
from a variety of fields. To ensure a genuine Federal/State partnership, a representative
of the Corporation will sit on the State commissions, and a State representative will sit
on the Corporation Board.
All programs will have to compete for support; none will be guaranteed funding.
One-third of funds will be allocated by population-based formula to State commissions
with approved plans for competitive distribution of funds; at least one-third to State
commissions on a competitive basis for competitive distribution; and up to one-third
will be reserved to the Corporation for allocation on a competitive basis.
Programs
National quality criteria for programming will be developed for every type of program
in conjunction with experts in the field.
Performance goals and independent evaluations will be required in every program.
2
An Inspector General will police fraud and abuse and perform oversight of funded
programs.
To encourage public/private partnership, programs must provide a 15 percent cash
match on stipends and health care and a 25 percent match for other program support.
Entities ranging from small community organizations to Federal agencies will be
eligible to operate service programs.
A broad array of possible programs will be eligible for funding: from youth corps for
at-risk youth, to specialized service programs for college graduates, to diverse
community corps for Americans of all backgrounds. Many other models are possible,
and venture capital will be available for new efforts.
Participants
To encourage wide and diverse participation, individuals aged 17 and over may serve
before, during, or after post-secondary education.
To target program participation to participant interests and community needs,
participants will be recruited and selected by approved local programs. A national or
State recruitment system will also be established to disseminate information and help
interested individuals locate placements in local programs. Information about
available positions will be widely disseminated through high schools, colleges, and
other placement offices.
To earn an educational award, a participant must complete at least 1 year of full-time
or 2 years of part-time service in an approved program. An individual may serve up to
two terms and earn up to two educational awards.
Educational awards of $5,000 will be provided for each term of service. Awards may
be used for past, present or future expenses, including 2- and 4-year colleges, training
programs, and graduate or professional programs.
Programs will set stipends within a limited range based at minimum wage. Health and
child care will be provided to those who need them.
Encouraging Service by All
The Act enhances the Serve-America program for school-age youth.
The Act extends and improves the VISTA and Older Americans Volunteer Programs.
The Act reauthorizes support for the Civilian Community Corps.
The Act reauthorizes support for the Points of Light Foundation.
3
CORE STAFF OF THE
WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF NATIONAL SERVICE
(202) 456-6444
Eli J. Segal
Assistant to the President and
Director of the Office of National Service
Rick Allen
Deputy Assistant to the President and
Deputy Director, Office of National Service
Jack Lew
General Counsel, Office of National Service
Gloria Johnson
Special Assistant to the President and
Director of Public Liaison, Office of National Service
Diana Aldridge
Director of Communications
Susan Stroud
Senior Advisor to the Director
Phil Caplan
Liaison from ACTION
Robert Gordon III White House Fellow - Summer of Service Program
Josie Heath
Advisor to the Director
Nick Lowery
Advisor to the Director
Nancy Rubin
Private Sector Liaison
INFORMATION ON THE PRESIDENT'S NATIONAL SERVICE INITIATIVE:
0
Timing: The President will submit legislation for his
national service program to Congress this spring.
o
Two Components of the Program: The President's program will
have two primary components: 1) The program will create national
service opportunities for young people to serve their country and
receive money for college or training in return; 2) The program
will enable all young people to go to college or receive training
to pay back their student loans as a small percentage of their
income over time ("income contingent" loans) -- enabling them to
hold essential public service jobs that accomplish much but
sometimes pay relatively little.
Detail. on The First Component:
o
Funding: The President has requested $7.4 billion over the
next four years for his national service program. The funding
level will rise each year, to $3.4 billion in 1997. Funding
starts at $400 million for the first year.
o
Number of Participants: The number of participants for the
first year is estimated at 25,000. By 1997, it is expected that
more than 100,000 young people will be paying for their education
or training by serving their country and communities.
o
Eligibility and Benefits: Students before, during and after
college will be eligible to serve for a year or two, and in
return receive a small stipend, health and child care benefits
where necessary, and an educational benefit to pay for college or
job training (or discharge loans incurred for those purposes).
o
Focus of Service Activities: The program objectives will be
to meet unmet needs in critical areas. For example, young people
will be able to serve as teachers in schools where children need
extra help; in clinics in areas where people need medical care;
in the police force, keeping criminals off the streets and kids
out of gangs; and in an environmental corps, recycling waste and
fighting pollution.
o
Administration: The program will be non-bureaucratic, using
venture capital to support entrepreneurs and public-private
partnerships to support growing programs. States and local
organizations will be given the opportunity to design innovative
ways to meet identified national priorities.
o
Nondisplacement: The legislation will include strict
nondisplacement and nonduplication provisions. National service
will only meet needs that are not otherwise being met.
INFORMATION ON THE PRESIDENT'S "SUMMER OF SERVICE" PROJECT:
o
Project Overview: With national service a high priority for
the President, he will be organizing a summer project even as his
proposed legislation will be making its way through Congress.
The project will focus on 4 to 10 communities around the country,
involving a diverse group of more than 1,000 young people
involved in special efforts to help children at risk.
O
Funding: The project will be funded with a portion of a $15
million appropriation in the FY 93 stimulus package. (Additional
challenge-grant funding for service corps; for expanding teacher
training in service learning; and for re-establishing VISTA's
Summer Associates program are also included in the package.)
Objectives: The program has two major goals: To show what
national service can accomplish, meeting critical needs and
bringing people together; and to develop a leadership corps for
future years of national service. National service is such a
priority of the President, he wouldn't let it wait for the full
program to pass Congress.
O
Targeted Needs: The programs in the "Summer of Service"
will focus on children-at-risk in the areas of education, health,
crime prevention, and environmental protection. For example, some
participants will tutor; some will help bring families into
medical clinics; some will develop recreational centers; some
will counsel youths to keep them out of gangs.
o
Leadership Training: The summer project will be designed to
develop the leadership skills of the young participants. For
several days at the beginning and end of the summer, the
participants will gather to share their experiences and complete
intensive leadership training.
o
Post-program/Ongoing Benefits: All participants interested
in continuing to serve through the next year will receive
placement assistance. Participants with ideas to design their own
programs to fight community problems will be able to receive
modest Service Entrepreneurial Awards for Change (SEA Change) to
realize their plans.
o
Administration: The Commission on National and Community
Service will administer a competitive process to determine what
programs participate. The programs will select the participants.
The Commission is working quickly to ensure that programs are
developed rapidly and effectively to succeed for this summer.
National Service - Now
By Bill Clinton
lenge is great. We must combine the
would be self-defeating: If would
The New York Times
intensity of the post-World War II
squash the spirit of innovation that
2/28/93
years with the idealism of the earty
national service demands.
WASHINGTON
1960's - and help young people afford
By design, our national service pro-
pathy is dead.
a college education or job training.
gram will not happen overnight. In-
Of everything I've
In 1993, we'll restore the spirit of
stead. it will grow year by year, with
learned in my first
service by asking our people to serve
funding reaching $3 billion in 1997.
few weeks in the
here at home. We won't refight the
And as I've said many times, I be
White House. that's
wars we won, but we'll tackle the
lieve it will be the best money we ever
the thing that's made
growing domestic dangers that
spend.
me the happiest. Whether or not the
threaten our future.
If Congress gives us the chance.
people I've met outside the capital
Our new unitiative will embody the
this summer we'll create an eight-
support the changes I have proposed.
same principles as the old G.I. BILL It
week leadership training program.
they're all saying they're ready to
will challenge our people LO serve our
We'll recruit more than 1,000 young
rebuild our country.
country and do the work that should
people for special projects to meet
But they know, as I do, that no
- and must - be done. It will give
the needs of children at risk - and to
economic plan can do It alone. A plan
those who serve the honor and re-
train the first class of full-year par-
can make vaccines available to chil-
wards they deserve. It will invest in
ticipants.
dren. but alone It will not administer
the future of the quiet heroes who
In the first full year of our initiative,
the shots to all of them. It can put
invest in the future of others.
we'll launch our flexible loan program
security guards in the schools. but
The national service legislation
and aim to put tens of thousands of
alone It will not take gangs off the
that I will send to Congress shortly
people to work. By 1997. more than
streets. And it can provide more aid
will give our people the chance to
100,000 citizens could be serving our
for college. but alone it will not make
serve in two basic ways:
country, getting education and train-
the costs of college less daunting for
First, It will make it easier for
ing benefits in return. And hundreds
the middle class.
young people to hold low-paying pub-
of thousands more people could be
That's why I believe we need na-
lic ervice jobs and still pay off their
doing invaluable work because col-
tional service - now.
"rudent loans.
lege loans no longer block the way.
If Congress acts quickly enough, just
Jnde: our program. Americans
But the best planning and the most
months from now more than 1,000
will be able to borrow the money they
ambitious design won't make this VI-
young people will start serving our
need for college and pay it back as a
sion of national service a reality. That
country in a special summer effort In
STEAM percentage = their accord
responsibility ultimately asu with
four years, the successors to these
over ume By giving graduates the
the American people.
pioneers will multiply a hundredfold
chance to repay loans on an afford-
I am convinced that after !2 years
Imagine: an army of 100,000 young
able, reasonable schedule, this "In-
of drifting apart instead of working
people restoring urban and rural com-
come-contingent" program will allow
together we are ready to meet the
munities and giving their labor in re-
our people to do the work that our
challenge. From a 14-year-old boy in
turn for education and training
communities really need.
North Dakota who sent us $1,000 to
National service IS an idea as old as
Second, our legislation will create
help pay off the deficit, to a 92-year.
America. Time and again. our people
new opportunities for Americans to
old widower in Kansas who followed
have found new ways to honor citizen-
serve our country for a year or two
his example. people are demonstrat-
ship and match the needs of changing
and receive financial support for edu-
ing that they want to give something
times.
cation or training in return.
back to their nation.
Lincoln's Homestead Act rewarded
We'll offer people of different ages
National service will exercise our
those who had the courage to settle the
and educational levels different ways
talents and rebuild our communities.
frontier with the land to raise a family.
LO serve. And to focus our energies and
It will harness the energy of our
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Social Secun-
get the most for our money, we'll direct
youth and attack the problems of our
ly Act insured that Americans who
special attention to a few areas:
time. It will bring together men and
work a lifetime can grow old with
. We'll ask thousands of young peo-
women of every age and race and lift
dignity. Harry S. Truman's G.I. Bill
up our nation's spirt. And for all of
pie to serve in our schools - some as
rewarded the service of my father's
us, It will rekindle the excitement of
teachers, others as youth mentors,
generation, transforming youthful vet-
being Americans.
reading specialists and math tutors.
erans into an army of educated ctvil-
They'll join the effort to insure that
ians that led our nation into a new era.
our schools offer the best education in
For my generation, the reality of
the world.
national service was born 32 years
ago tomorrow, when President John
0 We'll send people into medical
F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps.
clinics to help immunize the nation's
At its peak, the Peace Corps enrolled
2-year-olds. Some participants will be
only 16,000 volunteers yet n changed
qualified to give the shots, but thou-
the way 8 generation of Americans
sands of others can provide essential
look at themselves and the world.
support, contacting parents and
Today. the spirit of our people once
following up to make sure children
again can meet head-on the troubles
get the shots they need.
of our times.
. We'll help police forces across the
The task is as complex as our chai-
country through a new Police Corps
trained to walk beats. We'll also or-
President Clinton will deliver a
ganize others in our communities to
speech on national service tomorrow
keep kids out of gangs and off drugs.
at Rutgers University.
. We'll put still others to work con-
trolling pollution and recycling waste,
to help insure that we pass on to our
children a nation that is clean and
safe for years to come.
Our national service program will
offer more than benefits to individ-
uals. We'll help pay operating costs
for community groups with proved
track records, providing the support
they'll need to grow. And we'll let
entrepreneurs compete for venture
capital to develop new service pro-
grams.
While the Federal Government will
provide the seed money for national
service. we are determined that the
participants - the individuals who
serve and the groups that sponsor
their service - will guide the process.
Spending tens of millions of tax dol-
lars to build a massive bureaucracy
Yet Clinton's philosophy of service rep-
resents intellectual newness to many in
high school and college. John F. Kennedy's
appeals to national service are seen as
historical relics, known from books but not
SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1993 A21
live on MTV as are Clinton's. It wasn't a
politician's celebrityhood that created sup-
port for the president at Notre Dame and
Colman McCarthy
Rutgers. Students saw in him someone
with a positive message-put community
interest above self-interest-that many
Clinton's
professors and counselors at their schools
had been exposing them to all along: If you
can't teach the illiterate, comfort the sick
and handicapped, or mend whatever and
Call to
whoever is broken during your college
years, you're receiving a limited education.
Clinton deserves to be honored for
taking a risk that he'll be able to raise the
Service
money for his program of national ser-
vice. Critics in Congress with no greater
agenda than carping about ideas they
No speech in the Clinton campaign
were too dull-witted or timid to propose
was more inspirational than the candi-
themselves now lie in wait for the presi-
date's remarks at the University of No-
dent when he comes in with specifics.
tre Dame last September. As president,
They will say Clinton's ideas are danger-
Clinton didn't match it until his March 1
ous because they are romantic and utopi-
speech at Rutgers University. At both
an, a chai that ignores the thought of
campuses, he issued calls for national
James Madison in 1788: "No theoretical
service for college students.
checks-no form of government. can
At Notre Dame: "If we are truly to
render us secure. To suppose that any
practice what we preach, Americans of
form of government will secure liberty or
every faith and viewpoint should come
happiness without any virtue in the peo-
together to promote the common good."
ple is a chimerical idea."
It was similar at Rutgers: "National ser-
Some critics charge that Clinton is into
vice is nothing less than the American
bribery: tuition money for service. While
way to change America."
the details are being worked out on how
Clinton's effort to rally the young to
much money for what service, who com-
altruism has created a debate that pits
plains that the U.S. Army entices re-
idealism against realism, as if the two are
cruits with as much as $20,000 toward a
forever locked in conflict. Where's the mon-
college education. Why isn't it bribery
ey, ask realists, for the tuition-for-service
when ROTC programs pay students to
program that Clinton is proposing: $389
shine their boots occasionally and take
million in scholarships for 25,000 students
gut courses in military lore. Nor is much
the first year and $3.4 billion for 100,000
alarm expressed over the most lavish
by 1997. Realists say that Clinton's sweet
enticement of all: a free ride at the
talk ignores sour facts: There's no money
military academies in exchange for a few
for a new social program.
years in uniform after graduation.
From that negative, despairing argu-
Clinton's Rutgers speech marked the
ment, Clinton is supposed to get the
32nd anniversary of the Peace Corps. Ken-
message: Don't even try. That means
nedy's spirited message was repeated by
don't lead, just preside. The past 12 years
Clinton: "Answer the call to service." In
witnessed two presiders in the White
"The Bold Experiment," a history of the
House. Most first-year college students
Peace Corps by Gerard Rice, one of those
today were in kindergarten when Ronald
who responded to Kennedy's call explained
Reagan was elected and in fourth grade
why: "I'd never done anything political,
when reelected. They came into adoles-
patriotic or unselfish because nobody ever
cence under a politician who tried nothing
asked me to. Kennedy asked."
by way of linking government with nation-
So has Clinton.
al service. Instead of selflessness to oth-
ers, he extolled self-enrichment.
Evidence suggests that the young
weren't seduced either by Reagan's mes-
The Washington Post March 13, 1993
sage of contempt for government or his
disdain for altruism. The 1980s saw a
surge in campus community-service pro-
grams, such as the ones Clinton praised
at Notre Dame and Rutgers. Amnesty
International chapters increased on cam-
puses, as did those of Oxfam USA. Appli-
cations to Peace Corps remained high, as
they did for such private domestic pro-
grams as the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and
the Lutheran Volunteer Corps.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1993
POLITICS & POLICY
National Service Already Attracts Volunteers,
Even Before the Debate in Congress Has Begun
By GERALD F. SEIB
talk about." says Doug Bandow, an ana-
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON - "If you build it. he
lyst at the Cato Institute, a conservative
will come." a mysterious voice told Kevin
Washington think tank. Even among pro-
Costner about the baseball diamond in
ponents, there are nagging worries that
"Field of Dreams." President Clinton
the program may crush grass-roots volun-
hasn't even built his National Service
teer programs. or that the jobs it provides
could either steal work from adult workers
program yet. and they are already coming
in droves.
or become make-work jobs.
National Service is Mr. Clinton's dream
The idea of a National Service pro-
of putting young Americans to work tack-
gram has been gaining steam. particularly
ling the nation's pressing social prob-
among moderate and conservative Demo-
lems in return for college tuition benefits.
crats. for several years. The idea is both to
Already. Eli Segal. the man in charge of
solve mettlesome social problems and in-
making the dream a reality. is being
still a sense of civic responsibility in young
besieged with letters from young people
Americans by putting them to work in
volunteering to join a preliminary Na-
community service projects for one or two
tional Service pilot program this summer.
years at a time. By the time Mr. Clinton
More than 4,000 applications have poured
latched onto the idea as a presidential
in so far for a program that will have only
candidate. Congress aire .y had started
about 1,000 jobs to offer - and that's if
the ball rolling by funding a few pilot
congressional Democrats and Republicans
projects.
end their squabbling and pass the Clinton
In his campaign. Mr. Clinton talked of a
economic stimulus package that contains
far more ambitious program in which any
money to pay for it.
college student would be able to borrow
Bill in Congress Soon
money from a new National Service Trust
Fund. and then pay it back through service
In many ways, the real debate over
work. The problem with that formulation,
such knotty questions as how much the
in the eyes of many National Service advo-
program should tilt toward middle-class
cates. was that it seemed a recipe simply
youths and how much toward the disad-
for helping middle-class kids already en-
vantaged is yet to begin. Within the
rolled in college find a way to pay off their
next month or so, Mr. Segal says. he hopes
school loans.
to send Congress a bill formally creating
Need to Lure Poor Youth
the full-blown National Service program.
which will aim to put 100,000 young
The early champions of National Serv-
Americans to work in hundreds of projects
ice prefer an approach that more closely
around the country at a total cost of $6
resembled the G.I. Bill formula, in which
billion by 1997, sowing the seeds for
young people would do community service
greater spending later.
first, and then get their college tuition
The administration's short-term goals,
benefits afterward. That way. these advo-
he says. are to get the legislation passed by
cates hope, the program would lure more
the end of this year and then have 25,000
lower-class and minority youngsters, who
young Americans at work as teachers.
otherwise wouldn't find their way into
police officers, and health and environ-
college in the first place. They argue that
mental workers by the end of next year.
helping steer those youngsters into jobs
The long-term goal is to have an
and college is especially important with
impact on young Americans as profound as
the shrinkage of the military. a traditional
that felt by the G.I. Bill half a century ago.
avenue for social advancement.
"If done properly, this is one of the more
"We want it to be more an a loan-for-
nonpartisan initiatives of the Clinton ad-
giveness program." says Al r rom, who's
ministration," says Mr. Segai, a success-
president of the moderate Democratic
ful business entrepreneur who became a
Leadership Council and was director of
top Clinton campaign aide last year. "If
domestic policy for the Clinton presidential
we do this right, we can wash out all
transition. "We want it to be potentially an
of the problems."
upward-mobility track for the disadvan-
taged as the military is downsized."
Skeptics Cite Costliness
In post-election discussions with ad-
Skeptics say the program will be too
visers, Mr. Segal says, the president "be-
small to have the sweeping effect on
came aware of a feeling that this should be
society that Mr. Clinton desires - and
made available to a much larger universe
would be too costly if it were made large
of people." So Mr. Clinton shifted his
enough to have such an impact. "It's hard
vision. Now, Mr. Segal says. the adminis-
to imagine this program having anything
tration's plan will offer slots to those who
close to the kind of national impact they
are "pre-college. non-college. during-col-
(over)
National Service Program
Bodget proposal outlays for President Clinton's
National Service initiative. in millions of dollars
$4,000
lege and post-college. The young partici-
3,000
pants will get a small salary and also earn
education benefits that can be applied to
either college or job-training programs.
2,000
The administration is working behind
the scenes to settle other potentially emo-
tional debates about the program. Some of
1,000
those who already run grass-roots volun-
teer programs worry that the new national
103
program will swallow them up. rather than
0
1995
1997
simply feed them young workers. "Is
this effort going to build on the strengths
Sourc 1 ibe White House
and model- that already are out there in
the field. as opposed to just running rough-
at this as an investment banking house,"
shod over them with a lot of government-
Mr. Segal says. "This is not a federal
centered efforts?" asks Roger Landrum,
program for the most part.
president of Youth Service America. a
Unions fret that the program will
nonprofit organization that promotes com-
send low-paid workers into the field to
munity service projects.
stea. jobs from their members. Mr. Segal
has met union leaders to assure them that
Working Behind the Scenes
National Service workers will be doing
Predictably. Mr. Segal is trying to
jobs that aren't being done by anybody
assure people that he isn't building a big
right now. And some in the military worry
new bureaucracy. Mr. Clinton. he says,
that a National Service program will hurt
will use the presidential "bully pulpit" to
them by drawing away potential military
pick the kinds of jobs he thinks National
enlistees. Cleverly, the White House is
Service workers should tackle: helping run
helping win over the military by making it
clinics that immunize young children is
part of the new program. Mr. Segal says
likely to be one early priority.
military officers. drawing on their long
But he insists the White House will
experience in organizing legions of young
mostly look for promising programs that
volunteers, will help conduct training ses-
already are under way in cities and towns
sions for workers this summer.
across the U.S., and funnel federally
For now, though. such political worries
financed young workers toward them. For
seem far removed from the young people
instance. he says his office has received
who are lining up for National Service-
proposals from 435 different communities
and baring their idealism in the process. "I
around the country seeking to put to
readily accept your call to action. your call
work young volunteers in the coming
to serve my nation through national serv-
summer pilot project. Mainly, he says.
ice." reads one letter Mr. Clinton just
those are projects that already are up and
received from a Kentucky college student.
running but eager for help from federally
"This summer. I want to MAKE A DIF-
financed young workers to expand. "I look
FEREI.OR
Los Angeles Times
SUNDAY, MARCH 7. 1993
COPYRIGHT 1993 THE TIMES MIRROR COMPANY CC1/454 PAGES
HRISTOPHER MATTHEWS
An Experience
That Can
'It forces you, against all your
timidity, to deal one-on-one
Change a Life
with people who were placed
on this Earth in very different
National service will offer
circumstances than you.'
Americans an escape from a
stay-at-home, career-driven rut
rich range of personalities. it settled on me
that warm afternoon that I was the only
I
n 1951. U.S. Rep. John F. Kennedy
one in the rc m who was not a Swazi. the
complained on national television about
only one ho was of a different color.
all the nerds he found serving in the State
This is the heart of it: The great thing
Department. Just back from a round-the-
about joining the Peace Corps is that it gets
world trip, he asked why the country
you out there. out in the world. It forces
couldn't find "well-rounded" young people
you. against att your timidity, to dear
to serve abroad. Why. the young Massa-
one-on-one with people who were placed
chusetts lawmaker wondered on "Meet the
on this Earth in very different circum-
Press," weren't there any "American
stances than you. It requires that. raised
types" representing us in foreign lands?
one way, you learn another. Ready or not.
Kennedy had another complaint: How
it makes a Peace Corps volunteer see the
come those pin-striped Foreign Service
world he or she left behind with the same
boys infesting the diplomatic corps knew
succinct clarity as astronauts once got to
so little of the people of their assigned
gaze on the globe.
countries. so little of the local language and
The great prospect for Bill Clinton's
customs?
national-service program is that it will do
A decade later, the newly inaugurated
much the same here in our own diverse
President Kennedy offered a solution. His
land. Tens of thousands of Americans will
new Peace Corps would have three goals:
get to see their country the way they
First. it would help countries develop
would never have known it otherwise. The
economically. More than that, it would
fortunate ones will be assigned to jobs and
show people overseas the best of what
living environments far removed from
America can offer. the can-do zeal of its
where they came. They will meet people of
idealistic youth Finally. it would expose
totally different circumstances and reli-
America to foreign cultures by getting its
gions and colors. They will develop a
youth fully immersed in them. "doing the
self-confidence about their country and its
same work. eating the same food, speaking
people they could never have gained
the same language."
staying at home. continuing along the same
Last week. a U.S. President inaugurated
career-driven. TV-lit rut. By entering
an enterprise with similar goals. Under Bill
other ghettos. they will escape their own.
Clinton's national-service program. Amer-
I speak from experience. Immediately
icans will work throughout the country in
after returning from the Peace Corps. I
a variety of tasks-teaching. health care,
went to Washington, and, by knocking on
community action. In exchange. they will
some strange Capitol Hill doors, began a
receive government grants for their edu-
career that had me. while still quite young,
cations.
working at the White House. writing
In launching his own new program.
speeches for a President.
President Clinton paid tribute to the older
My aging grandmother was impressed.
one that had inspired it. The legacy of the
not so much by the achievement as the
Peace Corps. he said, is "not simply
differentness of my course. how extraordi-
goodwill and good works in countries all
nary my road had been from those of my
across the globe. but a profound and lasting
four brothers. all of whom had stayed
change in the way Americans think about
fairly close to home.
their country and the world."
"It was Africa, wasn't it?" she asked.
A returned volunteer could not have said
already knowing the answer.
it better.
Yes. grandmom, it was Africa. And.
Viewed from the outside, the Peace
thanks to President Clinton's national-ser-
Corps is usually seen for what it achieves
vice program. many other Americans
overseas, the furthered economic develop-
someday will answer a similar question
ment, the enhanced U.S. goodwill. The
with "Harlem" or "Alabama" or "Detroit"
secret every volunteer shares is what this
or "Alaska." This will be the shorthand for
service did for him or her.
an experience that changed a life.
Personally. I will never forget an experi-
ence of a quarter-century ago: that of
Christopher Matthews is a syndicated
standing in a schoolroom in Swaziland. a
columnist in Washington.
small, wonderful country in southern Air
ca, with 17 other people. All of them were
local traders with whom I had been
working. I knew them all personally, as
you would any fellow worker. Yet in that
M
Y
T
U
R
N
that he got during his own military service, and that my
What I Can Do
grandparents' generation did during World War II (and
after it, thanks to the GI Bill). It's the kind of patriotism
that we haven't seen during the past 20 years because
for My Country
there has been no big call to arms. My dad says that while
he might not have been acutely aware of it at the time.
because he spent a lot of time peeling potatoes and digging
foxholes, he learned some very powerful lessons about
BY CASSIE NYLEN
other people and about his country while he was in the
army, and I believe him. So he thinks my generation would
learn a lot. That sounds hokey. so I really hate to admit it,
first heard about national service while my dad and I
but I agree. Does that make me a dork, too?
were shooting hoops at the town school court last fall.
Daunting future: There are other reasons to be interest-
He asked me: "What if your country wanted you to
ed. We face awful societal problems today: crime. urban
serve. maybe in return for college money? You wouldn't
strife, drugs, racial and class conflicts, for instance. not
have to enlist in the military; maybe you'd be a teach-
to mention that this is the last season of "Cheers." The
er's aide. or clean up the environment, or something."
nation is coming apart at the seams and people don't
I answered. "A sphincter says what?" having just seen
connect with one another anymore. The future looks
Wayne's World" for the 85th time. But after thinking
daunting. So maybe some of these problems could be solved
about it, I said. "Well, I'd say yes. Definitely maybe yes.
or at least minimized a little, if people only understood
I'm a 17-year-old high-school senior at a tiny school (88
each other better. A program in which the nation's
students in grades 5 to 12, to be exact) in rural western
youth could learn how to work together would help.
Massachusetts (the boondocks to you). Next year I'll be
Here's another good point: since I go to a school where
going away to college (Haverford, specifically). By the end
virtually everyone looks, dresses and acts exactly like me, I
of my college career, I'll have thousands of dollars' worth of
wouldn't mind meeting other kinds of people for a change.
student loans to pay back.
Many kids might benefit
That scares me. So national
from this kind of exposure.
service sounds interesting:
National
Everybody wants to fig-
perhaps I would work in a
ure out how much all this
field in which I could get a
service would
idealism will cost, but if the
real job eventually, or at
program is going to work, we
least learn something, meet
give students
should first concentrate on
new people, pay back my
a chance
what it will do, and then fig-
loans and help my country
ure out the economic de-
at the same time. So, I'm
to prove
tails. The budget should
thinking, Yeah, all right,
themselves
come after we reach a con-
sign me up! But then I
sensus about what we want
think. Whoa, wait a minute
to do. This program has too
here: I have lots of ques-
much potential to let politi-
tions about national service, like, how much will I earn? (It
cians kill it before it even gets started.
doesn't have to be a lot, but I'd like to have an idea.) Where
Whoa, heavy stuff! Did I just say all that? Can a teenager
will I live? Will I be able to choose the program I want to be
have brain room left after all those hours of the very best bits
involved in. or could I wind up emptying bedpans at an old
from "Saturday Night Live" and all those Pearl Jam lyrics
folks' home (when I really want to work as a teacher's aide,
get lodged in there? That's another thing: national service
maybe in an inner-city school)? Questions like these have
would give teenagers and young people a great chance to
to be answered before somebody my age can get really
prove themselves to skeptical adults. That may be the best
excited about national service.
part of the program. But the big problem with Clinton's plan
Here's what we know so far. In his address before
now, judging from the vacant looks I see when I ask kids my
Congress last month, President Clinton said national
age about it, is that the people this plan will affect most
service is designed to help pay college tuitions for those
dramatically really don't know very much about it. Yet
students who serve their nation and their communities.
when I explained what I knew about it to my friends, they
He said twice as many people would enter national serv-
were intrigued.
ice within the first year of its operation as the number
So hey, President Clinton. use that telegenic salesman-
that participated in the Peace Corps in its whole history.
ship on us, and hold a nationally televised national-service
Good, I thought, now the plan is big enough to grab people's
summit. Don't rely on MTV alone, either, because we don't
attention in the bold way it should: the more people in-
have cable here in the boonies. Maybe you could invite
volved, the better it is for everybody. But now we learn
members of the earlier national volunteer organizations,
it begin as a pilot plan with a thousand people. A thou-
like VISTA, and also war veterans, vets from the Job Corps
sand people! That's not exactly what I had in mind. But
and the Civilian Conservation Corps and representatives
Clinton promises it will grow, and he's still talking about
from private volunteer organizations. Most important, you
adding new adjuncts to military service, like a police corps,
should invite some of the young people who will eventually
a teaching corps, a forestry or environmental corps and a
be enlisted to help mold the program that could end up
health-care corps. That's cool.
changing their lives. Adults owe it to their children to take
My dad is excited about the prospect of a national-serv-
action on the subject, to give them a clear stake in their
ice program-maybe a little too excited. The reason he
future. President Clinton. do it for Chelsea. But personally.
likes the idea (and keeps yammering at me about it) is that
I hope the Gore kids have to empty the bedpans.
he thinks young people will get a chance to gain the kind
of understanding of their country and what makes it work
Nvlen lives in Ashfield, Mass.
10 NEWSWEEK MARCH 22. 1993
THE WHITE HOUSE
OFFICE OF NATIONAL SERVICE
NEWS AND INFORMATION SERVICE
March 3, 1993
Contact: Diana Aldridge
(202) 456-6444
THE PRESIDENT ADDRESSES NATIONAL SERVICE AT RUTGERS:
On the 32nd anniversary of the establishment of the Peace Corps,
President Clinton spent a day in New Jersey challenging young
people to serve their country by meeting pressing national needs.
Before his address at Rutgers University, the President visited
the New Brunswick Public Schools Adult Learning Center, and spoke
to participants from both Rutgers and the community about their
outstanding service work.
Then speaking before what the New York Times termed a "wildly
enthusiastic" crowd at Rutgers, the President challenged
America's young people to "make America new again" by serving
their country.
The President also detailed his national service plan and issued
his challenged to young people in a taped interview with MTV.
Excepts aired Monday and Tuesday in a half-hour MTV special,
"Bill Clinton: His Plan, Your Future."
The VICE PRESIDENT AND OTHER ADMINISTRATION PRINCIPALS
ENCOURAGE SERVICE:
Also on Monday, March 1:
Vice President Gore visited the Wisconsin Conservation Corps and
gave a speech at the University of Wisconsin on national service
and the environment.
Mrs. Gore visited a Richmond emergency shelter for families, and
spoke to student service providers at the University of Richmond.
Five Cabinet Secretaries highlighted service on Monday: Secretary
Babbitt worked with the Durham Conservation Corps in Durham,
North Carolina; Secretary Pena specifically addressed service in
a speech to the National Association of County Organizations;
Secretary Reich visited YouthBuild in Boston; and Secretary
Shalala visited the Sick Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C.
On Tuesday, Secretary Espy gave a speech on national service at
Howard University.
(more)
Page Two
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PRESIDENT'S RUTGERS ADDRESS:
"National service will be America at its best -- building
community, offering opportunity and rewarding
responsibility.
"We'll ask young people all across this country and some
who
aren't
so
young
to serve in our schools as teachers
or tutors
to help our police forces across the nation
to help control pollution and waste
...
to work with
senior citizens and combat homelessness
"
"I want [national service] to empower young people and
their communities, not to empower yet another government
bureaucracy in Washin, ton. This is going to be your program
at your level with year people."
"I want to make this summer a summer of service
We are
going to recruit about 1,000 young people from every
background -- from high school dropouts to college
graduates, to send to an intensive leadership training
program for national service at the beginning of the summer.
Then we'll ask them to work on one of our country's most
urgent problems, helping our children who are in danger of
losing their God-given potential
At the end of this
summer
they'll all join in a youth service summit. I will
attend the meeting
"
The President specifically challenged young people to serve:
"If anybody here would like to be one of those 1,000 -- or
if anybody who is listening to this speech
or reads
about it and would like to be one of those ,000, drop me a
card at the White House and just mark it National Service. "
"I ask you by Friday -- every one of you -- to think about
what you can do and what we should do to be agents of
renewal; to talk with your parents, your clergy, your
friends, your teachers; to join the effort to renew our
community and to rebuild our country; and to write to be
about what you are doing. It's time for millions of us to
change our country block by block, neighborhood by
neighborhood
"
(more)
Page Three
PUBLIC AND PRESS INTEREST:
Public and press interest in the President's national service
plans was wide-spread.
Extensive coverage of the President's speech included front page
stories in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Philadelphia
Inquirer, among others. ABC News' "American Agenda" highlighted
successful service programs and young people exemplifying the
President's national service message in Washington State.
MTV produced its broadcast to encourage young people to examine
and respond to the President's plans for national service. In
addition to the interview with President Clinton, the special
included footage of his speech as he issued his "challenge tc
serve" to young people, and President Kennedy announcing the
Peace Corps 32 years ago.
###
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(New Brunswick, New Jersey)
For Immediate Release
March 1, 1993
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN NATIONAL SERVICE ADDRESS
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey
1:15 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.)
Thank you. Thank you, Nakia Tomlinson for that fine
introduction. I wish I could take you with me everywhere. We'd
make a great duo there. Let's give her another hand. I thought
she was great. (Applause.)
I'd like to thank President Frank Lawrence for his -
Francis Lawrence -- for his fine speech. Does anybody call him
Frank? I should have asked. (Laughter.) I want to compliment
Professor Benjamin Barber for his leadership and service here.
(Applause.) And I want to thank all of you here in the Rutgers
community for coming out for what I hope will be a truly historic
moment in our nation's history. (Applause.)
In addition to the people who have been introduced
here, there are a host of mayors and members of the Assembly and
county officials here from your state. We have two former
governors, both of whom I served with -- Brendan Byrne and Tom
Kean who are out there. I'm glad to see them. (Applause.) My
friends. We have a distinguished array of members of the House
from New Jersey -- Herb Klein, Bob Manendez, Frank Pallone,
Donald Payne -- (applause).
But you have some members of the Congress from all
over America here and I want to introduce them, too, because they
have taken a lot of trouble to come to Rutgers and because
without them and without the people who represent you, the
proposal I make today has no hope of passage.
Many members of the Congress for years have believed
we ought to do more in national service and some of them are here
today. I'd like to begin by introducing your Senator Bill
Bradley, who's behind me. (Applause.) I must say, when I walked
into this arena, I turned around and asked Bill Bradley if he'd
ever shot any baskets in here. I'd be intimidated to be the
opposing team in here. (Applause.) Senator Bradley sponsored
legislation to establish neighborhood corps and self-reliance
scholarships, things that are forbearers of the proposal I came
to make.
I'd like to recognize the presence on the platform
of Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts -- (applause) -- who
chairs the Senate Committee on Human Resources and Education,
which sheparded the pilot national and community service bill
through the Congress in the last session, along with his
counterpart who is out here in the audience somewhere. :'d like
to ask him to stand up. The Chairman of the House Committee,
Congressman Bill Ford, who came all the way from Michigan == =0
with us. Congressman, would you stand up. (Applause.)
MORE
- 2 -
I'd like to recognize in the audience the presence
of Senator Chris Dodd from Connecticut, who was one of the first
Peace Corps volunteers in the United States. (Applause.)
The member of Congress who introduced many, many
years ago, the first piece of national service legislation ever
introduced, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee,
Senator Clairborne Pell from Rhode Island is here. (Applause.)
I'd also like to introduce the only person in this
audience, at least of our crowd, who doesn't have to look up to
Senator Bradley, Senator Jay Rockefeller from West Virginia, an
early VISTA volunteer in the United States. (Applause.)
And finally I would like to recognize two other
people, one, a member of the United States Senate and one a
distinguished American citizen, the first boss of the Peace
Corps, Sargent Shriver, who's up here with me. (Applause.) And
his deputy, Senator Harris Wofford, from Pennsylvania.
(Applause.) And Mrs. Wofford, I'm glad to see you. (Applause.)
Now, I was involved before I became President in a
group called the Democratic Leadership Council, and we made one
of the central parts of our platform to reclaim a new majority of
Americans for our party the establishment of a system of national
service to help people to finance education. And one of our
founding members and guiding lights is here, Representative Dave
McCurdy from Oklahoma. I'd like for him to stand up.
(Applause.)
Let me make this last point, if I might, by way of
beginning. None of these things happen at the national level.
We empower them to happen and then people have to do things here
at the grassroots. And I want to say a special word of thanks to
your Governor for supporting the New Jersey Youth Corps and
several other projects like it around the state, because if
nobody's here to believe in this, it can't happen. And I thank
Governor Florio for his support for these things. (Applause.)
I came here to ask all of you to join me in a great
national adventure, for in the next few weeks I will ask the
United States Congress to join me in creating a new system of
voluntary national service -- something that I believe in the
next few years will change America forever and for the better.
My parents' generation won new dignity working their
way out of the great Depression through programs that provided
them the opportunity to serve and to survive. Brave men and
women in my own generation waged and won peaceful revolutions
here at home for civil rights and human rights, and began service
around the world in the Peace Corps and here at home in Vista.
Now, Americans of every generation face profound challenges in
meeting the needs that have been neglected for too long in this
country -- from city streets plagued by crime and drugs to
classrooms where girls and boys must learn the skills they need
for tomorrow, to hospital wards where patients need more care.
All across America we have problems that demand our common
attention.
For those who answer the call and meet these
challenges, I propose that our country honor your service with
new opportunities for education. National service will be
America at its best -- building community, offering opportunity,
and rewarding responsibility. National service is a challenge
for Americans from every background and walk of life, and it
MORE
- 3 -
values something far more than money. National service is
nothing less than the American way to change America.
(Applause.)
It is rooted in the concept of community: the
simple idea that none of us on our own will ever have as much to
cherish about our own lives if we are out here all alone as we
will if we work together. That somehow a society really is an
organism in which the whole can be greater than the sum of its
parts. And every one of us, no matter how many privileges with
which we are born, can still be enriched by the contributions of
the least of us. And that we will never fulfill our individual
capacities until, as Americans, we can all be what God meant for
us to be. (Applause.)
If that is so -- if that is true, my fellow
Americans, and if you believe it, it must therefore follow that
each of us has an obligation to serve. For it is perfectly clear
that all of us cannot be what we ought to be until those of us
who can help others -- and that is nearly all of us -- are doing
something to help others live up to their potential. The concept
of community and the idea of service are as old as our history.
They began the moment America was literally invented.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of
Independence, "With a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our
fortune, and our sacred honor." In the midst of the Civil War,
President Lincoln signed into law two visionary programs that
helped our people come together again and build America up. The
Morrill Act helped states create new land grant colleges. This
is a land grant university. The university in my home state was
the first land grant college west of the Mississippi River.
In these places, young people learn to make American
agriculture and industry the best in the world. The legacy of
the Morrill Act is not only our great colleges and universities
like Rutgers, but the American tradition that merit and not money
should give people a chance for a higher education. (Applause.)
Mr. Lincoln also signed the Homestead Act that
offered 100 acres of land for families who had the courage to
settle the frontier and farm the wilderness. Its legacy is a
nation that stretches from coast to coast. Now we must create a
new legacy that gives a new generation of Americans the right and
the power to explore the frontiers of science and technology and
space. The frontiers of the limitations of our knowledge must be
pushed back so that we can do what we need to do. And education
is the way to do it, just as surely as it was more than 100 years
ago.
Seven decades after the Civil War in the midst of
the Great Depression, President Roosevelt created the Civilian
Conservation Corps, which gave 2.5 million young people the
opportunity to support themselves while working in disaster
relief and maintaining forests, beaches, rivers, and parks. Its
legacy is not only the restoration of our natural environment,
but the restoration of our national spirit. Along with the Works
Products Administration -- the WPA -- the Civilian Conservation
Corps symbolized government's effort to provide a nation in
depression with the opportunity to work, to build the American
community through service. And all over America today, you can
see projects -- even today in the 1990s -- built by your parents
or your grandparents with the WPA plaque on it -- the CCC plaque
on it -- the idea that people should be asked to serve and
rewarded for doing it.
MORE
- 4 -
In the midst of World War II, President Roosevelt
proposed the GI Bill of Rights, which offered returning veterans
the opportunity for education in respect to their service to our
country in the war. Thanks to the GI Bill, which became a living
reality in President Truman's time, more than eight million
veterans got advanced education. And half a century later, the
enduring legacy of the GI Bill is the strongest economy in the
world and the broadest, biggest middle class that any nation has
ever enjoyed.
For many in my own generation, the summons to
citizenship and service came on this day 32 years ago, when
President Kennedy created the Peace Corps with Sargent Shriver
and Harris Wofford and other dedicated Americans when President
Kennedy created the Peace Corps. With Sargent Shriver and Harris
Wofford and other dedicated Americans, he enabled thousands of
young men and women to serve on the leading edge of the new
frontier, helping people all over the world to become what they
ought to be, and bringing them the message by their very lives
that America was a great country that stood for good values and
human progress.
At its height, the Peace Corps enrolled 16,000 young
men and women. Its legacy is not simply goodwill and good works
in countries all across the globe, but a profound and lasting
change in the way Americans think about their own country and the
world.
Shortly after the Peace Corps, Congress, under
President Johnson, created the volunteers and service to America.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, whom I introduced a moment ago, and many
thousands of other Americans went to the hills and hollows of
poor places, like West Virginia and Arkansas and Mississippi, to
lift up Americans through their service.
The lesson of our whole history is that honoring
service and rewarding responsibility is the best investment
America can make. And I have seen it today. Across this great
land, through the Los Angeles Conservation Corps, which took the
children who lived in the neighborhoods where the riots occurred
and gave them a chance to get out into nature and to clean up
their own neighborhoods and to lift themselves and their friends
in the effort; in Boston with the City Year program -- with all
these programs represented here in this room today, the spirit of
service is sweeping this country and giving us a chance to put
the quilt of America together in a way that makes a strength out
of diversity; that lifts us up out of our problems; and that
keeps our people looking toward a better and brighter future.
(Applause.)
National service recognizes a simple but powerful
truth -- that we make progress not by governmental action alone,
but we do best when the people and their government work at the
grassroots in genuine partnership. The idea of national service
permeates many other aspects of the programs I have sought to
bring to America. The economic plan that I announced to
Congress, for example, will offer every child the chance for a
healthy start through immunization and basic health care and Head
Start. (Applause.) But still it depends on parents doing the
best they can as parents and children making the most of their
opportunities.
The plan can help to rebuild our cities and our
small communities through physical investments that will put
people to work. But Americans still must work to restore the
MORE
- 5 -
social fabric that has been torn in too many communities. Unless
people know we can work together in our schools and our offices,
in our factories, unless they believe we can walk the streets
safely together, and unless we do that together, governmental
action alone is doomed to fail. (Applause.)
The national service plan I propose will be built on
the same principles as the old GI Bill -- when people give
something of invaluable merit to their country, they ought to be
rewarded with the opportunity to further their education.
National service will challenge our people to do the work that
should and indeed must be done and cannot be done unless the
American people voluntarily give themselves up to that work. It
will invest in the future of every person who serves.
And as we rekindle the spirit of national service, I
know it won't disappoint many of the students here to know that
we also have to reform the whole system of student loans.
(Applause.) We should begin by making it easier for young people
to pay back their student loans and enabling them to hold jobs --
(applause) -- enabling them to hold jobs that may accomplish
much, but pay little.
Today, when students borrow money for an education,
the repayment plan they make is based largely on how much they
have to repay, without regard to what the jobs they take
themselves pay. It is a powerful incentive, therefore, for young
college graduates to do just the reverse of what we might want
them to do; to take a job that pays more even it is less
rewarding because that is the job that will make the repayment of
the loans possible. It is also, unfortunately, a powerful
incentive for some not to make the payments at all, which is
unforgivable.
So what we seek to do is to enable the American
students to borrow the money they need for college and pay it
back as a small percentage of their own income over time. This
is especially important after a decade in which the cost of a
college education has gone up even more rapidly than the cost of
health care. (Applause.) Making a major contribution to one of
the more disturbing statistics in America today, which is that
the college dropout rate in this country is now 2.5 times the
high school dropout rate. We can do better than that through
national service and adequate financing. (Applause.)
The present system is unacceptable, not only for
students, but for the taxpayers as well. It's complicated and
it's expensive. It costs the taxpayers of our country about $4
billion every year to finance the student loan program because of
loan defaults and the cost of administering the program. And I
believe we can do better.
Beyond reforming this system for financing higher
education, the national service program more importantly will
create new opportunities for Americans to work off outstanding
loans or to build up credits for future education and training
opportunities.
We'll ask young people all across this country and
some who aren't so young who want to further their college
education to serve in our schools as teachers or tutors in
reading and mathematics. We'll ask you to help our police forces
across the nation, training members for a new police corps that
will walk beats and work with neighborhoods and build the kind of
communities ties that will prevent crime from happening in the
MORE
- 6 -
first place so that our police officers won't have to spend all
their time chasing criminals. (Applause.)
We'll ask young people to work, to help control
pollution and recycle waste, to paint darkened buildings and
clean up neighborhoods. (Applause.) To work with senior
citizens and combat homelessness and help children in trouble get
out of it and build a better life. (Applause.)
And these are just a few of the things that you will
be able to, for most of the decisions about what you can do will
be made by people like those in this room, people who run the
programs represented by all of those wearing these different
kinds of tee-shirts. We don't seek a national bureaucracy. I
have spoken often about how we need to reinvent the government to
make it more efficient and less bureaucratic, to make it more
responsive to people at the grassroots level.
And I want national service to do just that. I want
it to empower young people and their communities, not to empower
yet another government bureaucracy in Washington. This is going
to be your program at your level with your people. (Applause.)
And as you well know, that's what's happening all
across America today. People are already serving their neighbors
in their neighborhoods. Just this morning, I was inspired to see
and to speak with students from Rutgers serving their community,
from mentoring young people as Big Sisters, to helping older
people learn new skills.
I met a lady today who has 13 grandchildren and five
great-grandchildren who dropped out of school the year before I
was born -- is about to become a high school graduate shortly
because of the efforts of this program. (Applause.) Is she back
there? Stand up. (Applause.)
I'm impressed by the spirit behind the Rutgers civic
education and community service program: the understanding that
community service enriches education, that students should not
only take the lessons they learn in class out into the community,
but bring the lessons they learn in the community back into the
classroom. (Applause.)
And that spirit, during this academic year alone,
more than 800 students from Rutgers are contributing more than
60,000 hours of community service -- in New Brunswick, in Camden,
in Newark, throughout this state. (Applause.)
This morning I also met with members of the New
Jersey Youth Corps. Here they are. (Applause.) Stand up.
(Applause.) Young people who are looking for a second chance at
school, and who when coming back to finish their high school
degrees, also serve in their communities. Through this program,
more than 6,500 young adults have contributed over 900,000 hours
of service to the state of New Jersey. (Applause.)
They've done everything from paint senior citizens'
homes, to tutor and mentor children in after-school programs.
For the future of our state and nation, we need more young people
like those in the New Jersey Youth Corps who exemplify the spirit
of service.
That spirit also moves people all across the nation.
In my state, there's a young woman named Antoinette Jackson,
who's a senior in a small community called Gauld, Arkansas.
She's a member of the Delta Service Corps. The rural Mississippi
MORE
- 7 -
Delta is still the poorest place in America. And in that area,
she works with a "Lend a Hand" program which runs a thrift shop
to provide hungry and homeless people with food and clothing.
And in return, the Delta Four is going to help her attend college
so that she can make an even greater contribution. (Applause.)
The spirit of service also moves a young man I met
about a year ago named Stephen Spalos, who works with a City Year
program in Boston. At age 23, he's had some hard times in his
life. But as he puts it, City Year gave him a place and the
tools to be able to start over. He works as a team leader, a
mentor, a tutor, a project manager for a bunch of young people
who restore senior citizens' homes.
Last year when I visited his project, he literally
took his sweatshirt off his back and gave it to me so that I
would never forget the kids at city Year. And I still wear it
when I go jogging, always remembering what they're doing in
Boston to help those kids. (Applause.)
The spirit of service moves Orah Fireman, a graduate
of Wesleyan College. As a sophomore in high school, she worked
with disadvantaged children in upstate New York. That experience
changed her life. And during her high school and college years,
she continued to work with children. And now that she is out of
college, she has begun what will probably be a lifetime of
service by working at a school for emotionally disturbed children
in Boston. She wants other people to have the opportunity to
serve, and she wrote this: Service work teaches responsibility
and compassion. It fights alienation by proving to young people
that they can make a difference. There is no lesson more
important than that.
Well, there are stories like this in this room and
all across America. And we're going to create thousands of more
of them through national service. We'll work with groups with
proven track records to serve their community, giving them the
support they need. And if you have more good ideas, if you're
entrepreneurs of national service, we'll let you compete for our
form of venture capital -- develop new programs to serve your
neighbors. That's how we want the national service program to
grow every year -- rewarding results, building on success, and
bubbling up from the grassroots energy and compassion and
intellect of America.
I don't want service to wait while this potential is
wasted. That's why I want to make this summer a summer of
service, when young people can not only serve their communities,
but build a foundation for a new national effort. I've asked
Congress to invest in and I'm asking young people to participate
in a special effort in national service and leadership training
just this summer. We are going to recruit about 1,000 young
people from every background -- from high school dropouts to
college graduates, to send to an intensive leadership training
program for national service at the beginning of the summer.
Then we'll ask them to work on one of our country's
most urgent problems, helping our children who are in danger of
losing their God-given potential. Some of them will tutor. Some
will work on programs to immunize young children from preventible
childhood diseases. Some will help to develop and run
recreational centers or reclaim urban parks from dealers and
debris. Some will counsel people a few years younger than
themselves to keep them out of gangs and into good activities.
And everyone will learn about serving our country and helping our
communities.
MORE
- 8 -
At the end of this summer, we'll bring all these
people together for several days of debriefing and training, and
then they'll all join in a youth service summit. I will attend
the meeting and I expect to listen a lot more than I talk. I'll
ask leaders from Congress, from business, labor, religious, and
community groups to attend the youth service summit, too. We'll
give those who serve the honor they deserve, and we'll learn a
lot more about how to build this national service program. And
from the thousand pioneers of this summer, I want the national
service to grow 100-fold in the next four years. (Applause.)
But even when hundreds of thousands are serving, I
want to maintain the pioneer spirit of this first few months,
because national service can make America new again. It can help
solve our problems, educate our people, and build our communities
back together. So if anybody here would like to be one of those
1,000 -- or if anybody who is listening to this speech by radio
or television or reads about it and would like to be one of those
1,000, drop me a card at the White House and just mark it
national service. We're going to pick them. And I can't promise
you'll be selected, but I promise you'll be considered. I want
to engage the energies of America in this effort. (Applause.)
I also want to say that you shouldn't wait for the
summer or for a new program. We need to begin now. We are going
to be looking for the kinds of ideas that we ought to be funding.
This is Monday. I ask you by Friday -- every one of you -- to
think about what you think you can do and what we should do to be
agents of renewal; to talk with your parents, your clergy, your
friends, your teachers, to join the effort to renew our community
and to rebuild our country; and to write to me about what you are
doing. It's time for millions of us to change our country block
by block, neighborhood by neighborhood -- time to return to our
roots an excitement, an idealism, and an energy. (Applause.)
I have to tell you that there are some among us who
do not believe that young Americans will answer a call to action,
who believe that our people now measure their success merely in
the accumulation of material things. They believe this call to
service will go unanswered. But I believe they are dead wrong.
(Applause.)
And so, especially to the young Americans here, I
ask you to prove that those who doubt you are wrong about your
generation. And today I ask all of you who are young in spirit
-- whether you are a 10-year-old in a service program in our
schools who reads to still younger children, or a 72-year-old who
has become a foster grandparent -- I ask you all to believe that
you can contribute to your community and your country. And in so
doing, you will find the best in yourself.
You will learn the lessons about your life that you
might not ever learn any other way. You will learn again that
each of us has the spark of potential to accomplish something
truly and enduringly unique. You will experience the
satisfaction of making a connection in a way with another person
that you could do in no other way. You will learn that the joy
of mastering a new skill or discovering a new insight is exceeded
only by the joy of helping someone else do the same thing. You
will know the satisfaction of being valued not for what you own
or what you earn or what position you hold, but just because of
what you have given to someone else. (Applause.) You will
understand in personal ways the wisdom of the words spoken years
ago by Martin Luther King who said "Everybody can be great
because everybody can serve." (Applause.)
- 9 -
I ask you all, my fellow Americans, to support our
proposal for national service and to live a proposal for national
service: to learn the meaning of America at its best, and to
recreate for others America at its best. We are not just another
country. We have always been a special kind of community, linked
by a web of rights and responsibilities, and bound together, not
by bloodlines, but by beliefs. At an age in time when people all
across the world are being literally torn apart by racial
hatreds, by ethnic hatreds, by religious divisions, we are a
nation, with all of our problems, where people can come together
across racial and religious lines and hold hands and work
together, not just to endure our differences, but to celebrate
them. I ask you to make America calebrate that again.
(Applause.)
I ask you, in closing, to commit yourselves to this
season of service because America needs it. We need every one of
you to live up to the fullest of your potential, and we need you
to reach those who are not here and who will never hear this
talk, and who will never have the future they could otherwise
have if not for something that you could do. The great challenge
of your generation is to prove that every person here in this
great land can live up to the fullest of their God-given
capacity. If we do it, the 21st century will be the American
century. The American Dream will be kept alive if you will today
answer the call to service.
Thank you, and God bless you all. (Applause.)
END
1:50 P.M. EST
Summer of Service
Pregram Design
To demonstrate the power of national service to change both
communities served and individuals serving, the President has asked
Congress to appropriate $15 million in the economic stimulus
package for a Summer of Service.
The Summer of Service initiative will involve core than 1,000
young people in programs in a limited number of urban and rural
areas that will (1) meet the unnet needs of children at risk in the
areas of education, health, public safety and environment: and '2:
train the young people to become leaders of the full-year national
service program.
The Commission on National and Community Service will select
programs for funding based on the statutory authority contained ==
the National and Community Service Act of 1990. Current catching
requirements will leverage additional funding to support the
funding contained in the economic stimulus package. The following
activities indicate examples of services that programs in the
Summer of Service might provide:
assisting health care providers in implementing immunization
programs for very young children;
individualized literacy programs;
educational enrichment and recreational activities for
children at risk of dropping out of school:
projects to test an entire neighborhcod for lead paint.
Building 20 Existing Models
Existing not-for-prefit organizations (service providers.
schools, higher education institutions, youth corps, and/or, public
agencies) will be invited to submit program proposals to the
Commission. Programs that are funded will be required to reflect
the following components, among others:
a detailed plan showing measurable outcomes from the
services to be rendered (e.g.. how many children immunized ==
tutored; how many parks cleaned up or established);
a minimum of eight weeks of service during the summer ::
1993, not including the national training and relate:
activities described below:
a prover track record of running community service programs
of the type proposed;