Posted on 04/23/2009 7:07:10 AM PDT by BP2
CHICAGO – Volunteering has helped define a generation of young Americans who are known for their do-gooder ways. Many high schools require community service before graduation. And these days, donating time to a charitable organization is all but expected on a young person's college or job application.
Even so, an analysis of federal data has found that the percentage of teens who volunteer dipped in recent years, ending an upward trend that began after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"They're still volunteering at higher rates than their parents did," says Peter Levine, director of Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, also known as CIRCLE.
But, he adds, there's been "a loss of momentum," which he hopes recent passage of the federal Serve America Act will help address.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What's wrong with National Service? That's what FORCED Volunteerism is ALL about! < /sarc>
Oh, I see volunteering going way up in the near future, whether they like it or not.
..soon to become a requirement to get federal funds, sign up on the left kiddies
I don’t trust “do gooders”.
I don’t trust anybody who doesn’t operate with a little enlightened selfishness.
Personally, I think all “do gooders” are merely agents of leftist propaganda and tools of everyone who hates freedom and America.
I know, perhaps an oversimplification, but salient and mostly true nonetheless.
Why ‘volunteer’ now? For free.
Wait til you can tap into the billions of stimulus — volunteering then will get your paid and it is still called ‘volunteering’
New definition with Obami — Paging Webster!
Today with habitat for humanity and things like that, it seems like kids volunteer today just to feel good about themselves, or get into a good school. It's not genuine anymore.
Do not FORCE us to do more, and do not add more to the school curriculum! The kids are there to learn, not be involved in some Utopian Work Force Program.
Then it's NOT volunteering.
Just wait until it's a requirement for people to get their sorry nationalized healthcare.
Yep, if you need college tuition assistance, you must participate.
If the school districts want Federal Aid, they must participate -- it'll become a Education Department "recommendation" and happily endorsed by the NEA as part of the curriculum.
Remember this from his website back in November, shortly after Obama was elected? The website was quickly changed to something more benign-sounding when it's implications became readily apparent?:
It aint volunteering!
“Volunteer”: noun. def: an individual who will do work for the Hussein administration/re-election effort should he ever wish to collect or be eligible to collect social security, unemployment, medicare, medicaid, welfare, food stamps, public housing credits.....
Here might be a possible way around mandatory service.
Years ago, I knew a respectable girl, a black teenager from a good family. She was being driven home from a night Bible study by an adult female friend of the family, when they had car problems. The lady assured her she would be fine, and called a tow truck, then suggested the girl walk the few remaining blocks to her house.
Well, a police officer spotted the girl, and it being a few minutes after curfew had begun, arrested her, almost in sight of her house. The judge was not interested in her “excuses” and punished her with 100 hours of “community service.”
Ironically, they didn’t even tell her what kind of community service she should perform, but insisted that she had to find her own community service, so that someone would sign her paperwork. A lovely combination of both absurdly authoritarian and slothful government.
Well, struck by the unfairness of it all, a little inquiry revealed that a local young man was a Universal Life Church minister. People can become a ULC minister for free, just by going to their web site, and the ULC is not particular about their beliefs, generally speaking. However, they are recognized as a legitimate, and tax exempt church by the law.
So he agreed that he would sign off on her 100 hours of “community service” to his “ministry”, which would satisfy the court. And ironically, the court didn’t care that she did 100 hours of “community service” in five days. Such a hard worker.
But this was an interesting lesson to us all.
So when Obama has all sorts of ideas about “collectivizing the youth” to serve him, hopefully there will be a religious exemption, so that young people can serve “their church” instead of being indentured servants to the state.
If this is the case, no matter your religion, you might consider becoming a ULC minister, as an alternative to letting the state Shanghai these children. Thus they might know freedom and constructive individualism, instead of dreary collectivism under socialist masters.
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