Wednesday, April 8, 2009
What comes up when you think of spring break? Loud parties? Tequila shots? Landscaping? If you answered with the last one, you probably had a spring break experience similar to mine, which is to say you went on an alternative break. Alternative breaks send people out for a week or so to spend time helping a community. I took mine through Hillel and found myself joining several other students from the University, Maryland and Tufts (it’s in Boston) traveling to Tampa, Fla., to perform various acts of service.
Programs like this are great, and I encourage everyone to experience one at some point in their college career. But they put people to work for only a few days out of the year, and generally the only benefits to people participating are good times and a warm fuzzy feeling. Wonderful as those things are, the life of a college student is busy, and though many people have the drive to perform frequent acts of social service, not all can afford it.
So welcome, my friends, to HR 1388, also known as the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The bill was originally referred to as the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education, or GIVE Act, and was introduced by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). The bill was passed in March and expands opportunities for college students to perform acts of social service.
Among its many provisions, the bill adds several new programs to AmeriCorps, provides additional funding to colleges with strong social service programs and makes certain service-based awards equal to Pell grants. Basically, it makes life a little easier for people who are involved in social service work and rewards the higher education institutions that encourage them.
In his Address to Congress, President Obama spoke highly of the GIVE Act, which was then still under debate, saying that it would “encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations.”
In private conversation, I’ve heard some strange criticisms of the act. Some people have even told me they liken it to indentured servitude. But the Serve America Act gives people who are willing to do so the opportunity to perform beneficial acts and then receive compensation for it. Now, I usually refer to a set up like this as “employment,” but apparently not everyone sees it the same way.
There will always be a need for service work. Disadvantaged people will need help, dilapidated houses will need rebuilding, communities will need brightening up, etc. Hopefully there will always be college students willing to do this work. In Lawrence there will be projects like Jubilee Café, Up ’Til Dawn, and Dance Marathon, as well as the occasional alternative break program. By providing greater incentives for students to give back to their communities, the Serve America Act allows the spirit of those students not only to carry on, but also to thrive.
— Cohen is a Topeka junior in political science.
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Comments
Cohen: Serve America Act rewards goodwill
The point you feel-gooders always seem to miss is this. The national service bill in its original form (as well as comments repeatedly made by Obama & members of his cabinet) conatined language aimed at making community service universally required. And while it's true that the bill sections establishing the study related to making the Serve America Act provisions mandatory for all Americans were quietly removed from HR 1388 just prior to passage, they were not, as many people have implied, eliminated. They were merely moved from one bill (HR 1388) to another (HR 1444) so as not to hinder passage of step one. Finally, many of the surviving provisions ARE mandatory for school aged children.
Make no mistake, it is (and always has been) clearly the intent of this administration (whether they care to admit it or not) to eventually make all Americans serve a tour of "voluntary" community service and then to remain on the hook indefinitely as "volunteer" reservists for immediate call-up for deployment in the event of war, natural disaster or civil emergency. Gloss over it any way you like, but the Obamas' intent is unmistakable.
Cohen: Serve America Act rewards goodwill
My only question is whether we can call it community service if someone is being paid to do the service...
Though I am going into a science research career with the goal of helping the ill in less developed countries, I will still be compensated heavily for it. This is not community service.
Cohen: Serve America Act rewards goodwill
HR 1444 does call for mandatory volunteerism, which is not volunteerism. During the campaign Obama talked about giving scholarship money to those who volunteered. This is a good idea. Forcing someone to work against his or her will does not promote a better America.
Volunteers do such great jobs because they want to do the work. The value of work done by “volunteers” will substantially drop off if people are forced to work. Besides the ridiculous idea that Americans would be forced to volunteer for anything other than global or national security, this has the potential to ruin volunteerism in American. No longer are people spurred by human nature to help people, but they are lumped together in a bureaucratic government program that was designed to help get someone reelected.
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