Many Groups Already Give Kids the Chance to Serve Others

To the Editor:

While Deborah Spaide raises important issues (“Charities Must Give Kids the Chance to Serve Others,” My View, February 11), we at the Points of Light Foundation see a different picture of America’s youthful volunteers and the opportunities available to them.

Yes, more volunteer opportunities can and should be created for (and by) young people, but the pickings aren’t as slim as Ms. Spaide would have us believe. And that should be good news to us all.

The last 10 years have witnessed a growth both in the belief that young people should serve their communities and in the opportunities available to them to serve. This phenomenon has been highlighted recently in the essay “Ten Years of Youth in Service to America,” by Shirley Sagawa. Opportunities, such as those in schools and on college campuses, are greater in number and scope today than ever before — and young people are taking advantage of them. We agree with Ms. Spaide that more opportunities for young people are needed, and we are optimistic that the current trend will continue.

The Points of Light Foundation, with its national network of volunteer centers, is one of many organizations to recognize the value of engaging young people in volunteer activities. We have sought to identify and encourage the development of appropriate opportunities, and our efforts are succeeding.

In 1997, two-thirds of our volunteer centers said they had programs for young people, an increase of nearly 10 per cent in just two years. In addition, as a national network, the volunteer centers made a commitment to the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future to involve more than half a million young people in service in their communities by the end of 2000. To date, the centers have provided opportunities for nearly 200,000 young people to serve.

We are not alone in this effort. The Corporation for National Service, America’s Promise, Youth Service America, the National Youth Leadership Council, the American Red Cross, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the UPS Foundation, and others have made similar commitments and created efforts to engage young people in service.

Volunteering is a way to teach young people about civic responsibility. It is a tool to enhance their education and leadership development. The more these values are recognized, the more the potential for the supply of young people who want to serve to outstrip the number of opportunities available to them.

To minimize this problem, the Points of Light Foundation and others are thinking more creatively about their volunteer initiatives and are making the necessary changes so that more opportunities to serve are available. … We are committed to insuring that more young people are connected to their communities in positive new roles.

Cynthia Scherer
Senior Director, Youth Outreach
Points of Light Foundation
Washington

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To the Editor:

I want to thank Deborah Spaide for her clarion call to pay attention to the issue of finding ways for children to serve others.

In a previous incarnation, I was the host for a decade of a children’s television show in New York. In that role I was always looking for ways to stimulate my audience. Among other things, I got them to come out by the thousands to clean up Central Park — at times dragging their somewhat disbelieving parents along.

But the project that best underscores the point made by Ms. Spaide was the “Carnivals for Muscular Dystrophy” program. Bob Ross, executive director of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, came to me with the idea of getting kids to put on little carnivals in the basement of their apartment buildings, or alleys, or streets to raise money for muscular-dystrophy research. We concocted a packet, obtainable upon request, that included arm bands, posters, suggestions for games, and contests; a letter from Jerry Lewis; and one from me.

Thousands of kids responded. The following years it grew exponentially. Finally we took it national. Eventually, millions of dollars were raised. Donations came in such amounts as $5.76, $13.28, $24.35 at a time.

But what I remember best were the letters from the parents. I remember one that started out saying that for the first time that day, she had been able to sit down. Until then, she had been running around assisting her 10-year-old son in his carnival. In that state of exhaustion she wrote to say, “Thank you. I didn’t know my child could do it.”

Most of us do not know what our children can do. A 12-year-old Canadian kid led the fight to make us aware of child labor in India. Children have been raising money to help redeem slaves in the Sudan. Show a child suffering or cruelty, and he or she will care. But also show them a way to take action — then get out of their way. Perhaps they are our most underused asset.

Children feel so powerless in this alienating world. How wonderful to find ways to make them understand they can help change and shape the world they will one day inherit.

Sonny Fox
Senior Vice-President
Population Communications
International
Burbank, Cal.

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To the Editor:

I read the opinion piece by Deborah Spaide with a bit of amusement and some dismay. Ms. Spaide made it sound as if today’s youth has no idea what community service — or “sacrifice,” as she puts it — is.

As a former communications specialist with a Girl Scout council in Wisconsin, I routinely publicized the “good deeds” of our Girl Scouts — many of whom were in first or second grade. These young children “adopted” seniors in nursing homes, made “fun kits” for the children’s ward in local hospitals, and more.

The highest honor a Girl Scout can receive, the Gold Award, is given for community service. We had young women setting up holiday meals for shut-ins that carried on long after the girls left Girl Scouting. Girls cleaned up community parks and raised money for new equipment for the next generation to use. The list goes on and on. I think that giving up one’s time and money for a good cause is a sacrifice.

Girl Scouts do not sit back and wait for service opportunities to come along — they actively seek them out with the guidance of their parents, teachers, and churches. Try becoming a Girl Scout adult volunteer and see community service in action.

Diana Bahr
Communications Manager
Challenger Center for Space Science
Education
Alexandria, Va.

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To the Editor:

Deborah Spaide was both accurate and eloquent in her observation that charities should give young people the chance to serve others. We are indeed wasting a tremendous resource when we do not, and we are also denying young people the opportunity to learn the traditions of giving and sharing.

One of Ms. Spaide’s statements, however, should be corrected. She mentions Child Charitable Development as an example of charities that are positively involving youths in community service, and then says the pickings are slim elsewhere.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has supported, since 1988, literally dozens of youth-service and service-learning programs that give young people those opportunities of which Ms. Spaide speaks. Among those programs which come readily to mind are BreakAway, the Campus Outreach Opportunity League, City Year, the “Family Matters” program of the Points of Light Foundation, the Youth Project of the Michigan Community Foundation , and the Youth Volunteer Corps of America. All of these projects tap into the many talents and abilities of young people while giving youths the opportunity to learn about the traditions of giving and serving.

This should be considered an amplification of Ms. Spaide’s excellent thesis, and in no way a quibble with it. We can all agree that, although there are a number of excellent programs promoting service for youths, we would all be better off if there were more of them and if every young person had a chance to offer their talents and abilities to the betterment of society.

Joel J. Orosz
Program Director
Philanthropy and Volunteerism
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Battle Creek, Mich.