Participants:

Stephen Bruns, Youth
Service America

Kirsten Lodal, National
Student Partnerships

Michelle Regan, City Year
Young Heroes

Katie Schoen, Campus
Compact

David Weaver, Public Allies

Full transcript (PDF)

"I think this generation coming up, like most generations before it, really has a desire to give back and to make its mark and to do something important. And I think if we can create opportunities for them to do meaningful service work and use that to tap into their civic sense, we really could change the fact of this country and the world."

This quote by City Year's Michelle Regan captures the optimism and energy of the Case Foundation's Roundtable Discussion on Youth Service (PDF) held on April 10. Moderated by Senator Harris Wofford, a longtime champion of volunteering and service and a Case Foundation Senior Fellow, the discussion featured five young leaders on topics such as:

• Why the "charity" model of service is often ineffective.
• The pros and cons of mandatory service.
• Cynicism -- is service "cool"?
• The link between service and advocacy, voting, and other forms of citizenship.
• Perceptions of the terms "service" and "volunteering"
• Strategies to get more young people engaged in their communities

Highlights

Stephen Bruns
On the social aspect of volunteering:

"Being a youth myself still, I always found when I first got started that the people you are with who help in the volunteering side, I always -- that always was the motivation for me, you know, going with your friends, having a fun and memorable and even a learning experience was always a good thing."

When my teacher first brought up an idea of going to soup kitchens and helping out, they showed us pictures, and just the idea that our teacher shows us that there is a need for service, that is what got me motivated."

Kirsten Lodal
On the importance of impact:

"I think to some degree, it can be a part of the problem of the youth service movement in general, that there is this idea that young people maybe aren't as connected to the causes on which they are working or don't care a lot about really rigorous volunteer experiences or making a substantial impact."

I think volunteerism and in particular youth volunteerism can often be pigeonholed as kind of low impact, a good growing experience for the student, but not something impactful for the person or community being served, and I think that is a notion we have been trying to debunk through our work with NSP. But really, it's something I think that can pervade the volunteer movement in a certain way."

Michelle Regan
On service as an antidote to cynicism:

"I recognize all the way back to my own middle school years, feeling a sense of disempowerment, that my voice didn't really matter much, that no matter what I said, nothing was going to change."

I didn't feel like I was empowered, and I found myself in some ways starting to get caught up in this kind of adolescent and post-adolescent 20-year-old culture of cynicism where it's kind of cool to be down on things and be ironic and to not really get excited about anything, and I recognized fairly early on, I think, because of my service experiences in college that that just wasn't me, that I was an optimist and an idealist and that I really wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, and I realized that there were opportunities out there, but that I had to go looking for them."

The opportunities to be a part of something greater than myself weren't just kind of falling into my past as, well, this is one thing you could do, and I really was kind of struck by that and thinking that, wow, this could be potentially a right of passage for young people in this country and a way to get folks who maybe are disillusioned with institutions to get re-engaged and re-excited about making a positive difference in our country and in our world..."

I think one of the things that youth service does from the littlest kids all the way up to adulthood is that it empowers people and says, 'Hey, it's your turn. Here's a hammer. Here's a book. You go out and do something positive, and this is on you because this is your country and your world, too,' and that is just really exciting and powerful to me."

Katie Schoen
On the term "service":

"One of the things, being a public service leader, I have spent a lot of time focusing on these words, and I actually no longer even like using the word 'service.' I don't see the work that I do as serving a particular community. I see that I have now become a part of a certain community, and it is now in my interest as well as the interest of the community to work for change."

And I think that one of the things that I worry about -- and this could possibly have an effect, depending on the age of people -- is whether or not there is going to be this kind of charity model [of] service where there are people from the outside coming in and trying to improve the lives of this given population, and I think that one of the things that I just caution people about oftentimes is to be aware that it is great to have volunteers and it is great to have people doing service, but I think it is really important to remember that if we advocate for the youth within these communities that so desperately need certain things, then I think that is probably what I would advocate for, more than people outside the community coming in necessarily."

David Weaver
On the need to "engage kids where they are":

"In being able to address, especially young people, especially if we want to get all of them, where they are, it is really about being, you know, how can we connect with the things that are of interest to them because, again, if there is no personal connection to this, it is going to be really hard to try to draw people in. If they haven't experienced something that allows them to see service as being fundamental or necessary or volunteerism as being fundamental or necessary, if they have no personal connection to it, then it is difficult."

It's just about us looking at how service is being conducted and what we consider to be service maybe a little differently. How can youth use their music? How can youth use their artistry? How can youth use their talent and their skills where they are to begin to engage? And that is why I think the ultimate program or the model of what I want to see really does build off of some things that have already been said."

I really agree with Kirsten who talked about a continuum, and I think that Katie is dead on in terms of intentions and motivation. This is exactly what has to be -- that is why I said it has to go to something personal. It has to be connected to something, and you have to engage kids where they are."

I work with kids through the Freedom School program who were kindergarten through, you know, eighth grade, who for them, you have to make it relevant, you know, why is cleaning up the park around your house necessary. You know, we're not going to just do it because it is something to do. Is that important to you? Having them establish that as a value and having children, young people, young adults, people be able to articulate their values and begin to think about what their values are and build in that concept of service as you are doing that, added to that some preparedness that allows people to understand how you go into communities, how you begin to do service, that is where the intention and motivation things become really, really key, and not looking at communities and not looking at people from a deficit mind-set, but looking at it from an asset mind-set. What do these people already have to work with? What is already working well here, and how do we build off of those things, and how do we augment what is already in place and not come in with a charity mind-set that says, you know, well, you don't have and I'm here to give?"

Senator Wofford
On the importance of being asked to serve:

"You know, one of the reasons it still has been sort of bugging me for years is I was in a Habitat Build where I was doing symbolic work on Martin Luther King Day. I call it that because it was just a day's work, half the day's work.

"And they put me next to a young African American who had been in a gang and dropped out of school and they thought was heading to destruction when they enlisted him in the Philadelphia Youth Corps. He was scraping and painting next to me, and I pressed him, 'Tell me how you got into this,' and he said, 'Well, I thought it might be a better gang than the one I was in. I might meet some interesting people, and it might be -- I wouldn't get killed in the end.'

"He took it lightly, and then a few minutes later, he said, 'You want to know the real reason why I joined this Youth Corps? All my life, people have been coming into the housing project to help me, and I think I got tired of people doing good against me. This is the first time in my life anyone ever asked me to do something good,' and ever since he said that, that's been one of the sort of clues that I've had that a lot of people are waiting for that kind of challenge.

"There is a problem for some people who are served all the time, never being asked to serve."