Young People Find a New Way to Help Others

America’s nonprofit organizations have been built almost entirely with extras.

The D.C. Central Kitchen, for example, which I founded almost 20 years ago, runs on extra food — as does an extensive national network of kitchens, food banks, and pantries that rely on donated food from restaurants, manufacturers, wholesalers, grocery stores, and farmers. Every day, that network feeds millions of Americans whose paychecks don’t allow them to make it through the month without some sort of supplemental support such as a box of canned goods, an after-school snack, or a meal supplied by church volunteers in a basement soup kitchen.

Now some of that extra food is running out. As businesses have sought to maximize profits, they have become more efficient in how they produce food — and that means fewer leftovers to send to charity. In addition, new retail outlets are willing to pay for the slightly blemished vegetables, soon to be outdated dairy products, or mislabeled cereals that companies used to donate, leaving the antihunger network scurrying to meet the growing demand for aid while also trying to anticipate how it will provide for the neediest of the more than 77 million baby boomers who will require help as they reach their retirement years.

The decline in extras is not limited to food. As the economy continues to tighten, the once deep well of goods that businesses and people donated to charity — building materials, cars, clothing, and other items — could also begin to dry up. Perhaps most distressing now is the potential for a significant decrease in extra money flowing from private citizens to organizations that help people in need.

Americans have been without equal when it comes to donating money to charity. Every year, but most conspicuously during the holiday season, Americans pull out their checkbooks to make good on long-held traditions of faith or to take advantage of the generous U.S. tax code.

However, this entire process is predicated on the availability of extra money. Even before the current economic crisis, citizens were beginning to look harder and harder at the decreasing purchasing power of their paychecks and wondering if they could once again give to support others. Now Americans of all faiths and backgrounds are faced with the reality that money is tighter.

Yet there remains one deep reserve, one possible reservoir of resources that could, if used with audacity and intelligence, very well lead us into a new era of productivity and purpose: time.

Last year, almost 60 million people volunteered. Yet, in just about all of those cases, the energy and idealism was channeled through traditional charity. People cleaned riversides, chopped vegetables for food programs, painted shelter walls, or helped to rebuild troubled neighborhoods. Each was a solid investment — but was it the best use of this resource?

And if we continue to use volunteerism in the same way in which we used money, food, and material goods, will time become the next resource we deplete?

Some activists have been working hard to avoid that possibility.

Almost 30 years ago, Edgar Cahn began thinking about the lack of attention people pay to the value of their most precious commodity — their time on earth. He had been struck with a heart attack at age 46, and as he thought about the value of time, he came up with the idea for “time dollars.” Now, throughout the world, experiments that view time as a form of currency have blossomed. “Complimentary currency” experiments like Ithaca Hours and Burlington Bread allow people to barter their time helping others for goods and services they need. (To learn more about this movement, go to http://philanthropy.com/extras.)

During the presidential campaign, the value of time was touted again and again, as both John McCain and Barack Obama suggested that they would invest in expanding AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, significantly increasing the ways in which Americans can earn education stipends and other credit for using their time to help others.

Now that he has won the election, time will determine if President Obama has the economic resources available to make good on the promise of significantly expanding service opportunities in America, as well as strengthening the nonprofit world to channel that energy.

Important as national service is, another experiment in the use of time now taking place on college and university campuses offers possibilities of making up for the loss of so many of the extras Americans have available to contribute.

College is no longer a place where people start volunteering; by the time they begin their freshmen year, four out of five students have worked as volunteers.

By the time they graduate, many college students have spent at least seven years donating their time to good causes. But seeing charity from the inside has prompted many of them to openly question whether traditional charities make the best use of the one commodity they can afford to donate — their time. More to the point, as students face the worst economy in decades, they have no interest in working for causes that are not making a difference in solving vital national and global problems. In short, they don’t have time for charity; they want change.

That is why students are now beginning to merge their academic courses with lessons learned in the process of performing community service, and are spending time devising public-policy ideas that will make a difference. Perhaps most exciting, they are also running for elected office to put those policies into action.

Students at the College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Va., spent three years fighting for the right to vote in their college town. Two previous Williamsburg registrars fought tooth and nail to avoid giving students that right, but court rulings and a new registrar have now paved the way for students to run for local office. One student, Matt Beato, a college senior, has already taken a seat on the Colonial District’s Soil and Water Conservation Board, and this year he ran for the City Council.

In Burlington, Vt., Kesha Ram, a recent graduate of the University of Vermont and former president of the student government there, is running for a seat in the Vermont House of Representatives.

Like so many of her age, Ms. Ram brings significant accomplishments to the table. While still in high school, she helped to pass legislation banning carcinogenic chemicals from dry cleaning, started a recycling program for her school, and led a delegation of students to India for the World Social Forum, where she made a documentary about globalization.

Matt lost his bid for the City Council, while Kesha won her race. But both of these young pioneers represent an entirely new concept of community service.

Unlike previous generations, who divided their time between work, social activities, and spiritual commitments, people like Kesha and Matt seek to merge all three. We’ve raised this generation to think this way. And make no mistake, Kesha and Matt are not the exception — they are now the norm.

In 1963, as university presidents looked upon the incoming wave of new students, they could not help but feel that the baby boomers would be an eager-to-please, conformist generation. Few could have predicted that within five years they would be shutting down campuses, occupying offices, and burning the buildings that housed the Reserve Officers Training Corps. While there were many causes for student unrest, the beginning of a “selective service” draft in 1969 was the spark that ignited many campuses.

Today there’s a new draft in America — an economic draft — and every man and woman in Kesha and Matt’s generation just got called up. There will be no deferments this time. There will be no dodging this draft. The only question will be how this generation will react.

The students of the ‘60s took to the streets. With passion and energy, they staged massive protests and raged against the machine. This generation can actually take it over. With millions of students graduating from a university system that is still the envy of the world, let us recognize that young people are poised to plant the seeds for change that the ‘60s generation, with its traditional approach to charity, missed.

It’s time for all of us to encourage young people not to accept leftovers and to lead a movement that will provide real sustenance for people and communities around the globe.

Robert Egger is president of D.C. Central Kitchen, in Washington, and founder of the V3 Campaign, an effort to get nonprofit views considered in elections at the city, state, and federal levels.