Future National Service Volunteers:
Michelle Malkin and Glen Beck dissect this volunteer debacle that comes with a 6 BILLION dollar price tag. That is in addition to the 7.3 Trillion tax payer tab:
The day after the Senate swallowed this debacle of a spending bill. One which our own Senator Specter was only too happy to sign on to, I came across the true value of volunteerism right in my own neighborhood:
Early Saturday morning, while taking Buster for his daily walk, I came across a large group of teens removing trash that littered a small park across from my house. I live and work in Philadelphia, a gritty, blue collar city which is a far cry from William Penn’s delightful description of a “Greene Country Towne”. Philly’s urban jungle makes me more appreciative of the natural oasis that can be seen from my front porch.
Lately there has been an increasing amount of trash being dumped into the park. Several concerned residents contacted the Fairmount Park Commission to see what could be done to clean out the trash. A volunteer coordinator for Fairmount Park was notified and she organized a clean-up, with the expectation of only a few volunteers showing up to help. She was pleasantly surprised to see a group of at least 30 students arrive to lend their time to clean our small park. The neighborhood was appreciative of their efforts, with several people coming out to thank the volunteers for their work and one neighbor ordering pizza for the hungry teens.
6 BILLION dollars is not needed for this act of environmental improvement to occur. The volunteer mechanisms are in place in Philly and across the nation, all that is needed is an informed and engaged citizenry. That is what enabled this clean up to happen, not 6 billion dollars. We have allowed our government to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a redundant system that is not adding any value to what is currently in place.
I guarantee my little park would still be a mess if the residents on my street decided to simply sit back and wait for the 6 billion to trickle down to our little oasis.
Happy volunteers, with no uniform or oath to memorize:
My oasis in a blanket of snow this past January:
Is it still volunteering when you pay someone? This is why I found Clinton’s AmeriCorps program so stupid. What a complete waste of money. On a related note to Skye’s post. I, too, have a favorite trail I like to walk. There is an organization the seeks to keep it clean and maintain the trails. I actively participate and donate items (rakes, shovels, etc.). I usually see other concerned people like myself. Sometimes there are corporate sponsored groups and you get the occasional person that has to serve community service as part of a conviction. Then we started getting these AmeriCorps people. Ugh. No one is paid in the group and all things are donated, but these AmeriCorps people act like they deserve a paycheck. They griped the entire time and demanded 15 minute breaks every hour (mostly to take a smoke break). If this is the type of “volunteering” the leftist radicals are seeking, then god help us. It reminds me of the Maoist days of sending the people to the fields. Obama is just plain dumb.
Obama is devious, not dumb. Maoism is a good thing in his opinion, and for those who voted for him.
This redundant program is simply a vote grab, with no real value to the American people.
I can tell you that the park looks beautiful! The teens did a great job and had a pleasant attitude as well. I spoke with the organizer at length and have her contact information which I plan to use to organize more frequent clean ups.
You cannot force volunteerism, if that were the case, then this should have been a group of welfare recipients instead of teenagers. If anyone should be required to volunteer their time, it should be the welfare kings and queens – it is not as if they have anything else scheduled on their agenda…like work!
That picture is from “Village of the Damned” not “Children of the Corn”
The kid that’s 2nd from the right was in both.
There used to be a PFUSA chapter here that did cleanup projects around the county on public lands. Despite the fact that the members spent a lot of money advertising the cleanups and asking for volunteers, the ONLY people who ever showed up were local business owners. They provided all of the equipment, time, and money used for the cleanups. None of the local environmental activists, no representatives of the local unions, and no kids ever showed up to help. These dozen or so men hauled off literally tons of garbage. They were never thanked, they were never shown any appreciation by the community, and eventually most quit showing up because they were all older gentlemen and most couldn’t keep up the physical strain. Now, they are going to be rewarded by being taxed more to pay other people to do the same “volunteer” work and Obama can take credit for it.
Obama voters?
Americcorps, like the Peacecorps, is another arm of the democrat party. Both give information only to the democrat party and are loyal only to them. The democrat party has infiltrated so many different organizations in this country it is not funny. But these two, like ACORN, work only or the democrats. They try to spin both these entitites as good for young people when the truth is it is only good for the democrat party and no sone else. We republicans have allowed the democrats to take over government, the media, the schools and now they are taking over private industry too. We allowed it by being passive at all times and not making any waves.
Skye, I know the House version passed with only 85 Republicans opposing. The Senate passed it Friday with only 19 Republicans (and no Dems) opposing. And still sitting in a Senate committee is S277, the Serve America Act.
No kudos or thanks to most of the GOP here.
Bottom line, if the nation wants to see “bipartisanship”, your “children of the corn act” is just that. Disgusting, eh?
this has me and my husband fired up. what are they gonna do, throw parents in jail if the children don’t do it? my kids work with me on the volunteer things that i do, they enjoy it. i refuse to be “required” to make my children do this, i refuse to do this. volunteering should come from the heart, it should be something that you want to do, not have to do. this is freakin rediculous.
I believe article XI, that discussed mandatory service, was stripped out of the Senate Bill (which one of my Senators voted for, I guarantee he’ll hear about it). That doesn’t mean, however, that it won’t come back in reconciliation.
luva, I read thru the bills. It’s very “affirmative action” oriented. But any participating school will be required to place curriculum “encouraging” participation as part of the requirement for the funds.
BTW, the feds will only cover 50% of the funding. The rest has to be drummed up by the organization that wants to participate. Unless, of course, they can get a waiver by not being able to afford it. Then the feds will work out other arrangements, as they are specifically trying to get this placed in the income challenged neighborhoods.
You’ll also find that the “volunteer” leadership is to give preference to minority and income challenged as well.
You can read the text at GovTrack. HR1388, S243 and also read S277.
It quite frankly smells of Racism & Class Warfare. As a reminder, the 13th Amendment expressly forbids Involuntary Servitude in any form. Congress has clearly overstepped it’s Constitutional bounds on this piece of worthless legislation. The judicial Branch needs to toss this business out on it’s ear.
America needs more Programs right now like a hog needs a holiday. It is not money well or prudently spent.
Wisdom,
The ‘mandatory service’ is back, transformed into a blue ribbon panel to investigate methods of improving ‘volunteerism’: H.R. 1444
You should have employment for ignorant people. Gives the cops a break.
My sixteen year old son has his own take on this.
Years ago, when he was only ten, I asked him to consider the possibilities of a few different ways to volunteer some of his time during summer vacation. He decided it was a good idea and that checking out the possibilities of reading to the elderly at a nursing home would be a grand idea. He had hoped to make friends with some older men who might share stories of their youth, heroic tales too of military service, and play a mean game of checkers.
Today before he went to school, I talked to him again. This time about this possible mandatory “volunteerism.” He told me that he believes that the social development that can be gained by volunteer service would not occur if the work was mandated. To me, he made a good point, all fears of big government aside.
He concluded that certain skills could be learned. And that certain positive results could still take place in helping others. But he also said that he thinks people would lose their sense of neighborliness and connectedness if even our charity and compassion, our willingness to assist others was micro-managed by the government. He likened it to me telling him to clean his room as opposed to when he volunteers to do the dishes for his girlfriend’s mother when he eats a meal there. 🙂 In one instance, the gratitude he feels inspires his duty. In another, the “big government” of Mom is his more obvious motivation. (Not that he isn’t grateful for his home and all… LOL)
You guys will slowly become even more communist than us.
Sigmundringeck, I would agree to what you say other than the “slowly” part… : (
The government is attempting to take the place of God and impose it’s definition of character development on our youth. That is the parents’ responsibility and for many of us, hopefully even most of us, we do teach and disciple our children in the acquisition of norms and standards by our faith in God.
But when the government takes on that parental responsibility as it’s own right, the character that is developed will be void of any worship and practice of faith in The Creator and instead will be done “as unto the government” instead of “as unto The Lord”…
Government has three resposnibilities aisi, to preserve our [b]freedoms[/b], to administer right and true[b] justice[/b], and finally to work to insure the [b]peace[/b] of our people and the safety of our land.
H.R. 1844 has much to be feared. In two separate areas – Sec. 4 (b) sub-sections (5) and (6), wording has been introduced to look into ALL citizens to be expected or required to perform a certain amount of public service, and to look into whether a mandatory service requirement for ALL ABLE YOUNG PEOPLE [emphases mine]. This appears to be tantamount to involuntary servitude, even if only temporary, something against which our Constitution is supposed to protect us.
The authors/presenters of the bill are also all Democrats (no surprise there): Kennedy [Rhode Island], McDermott [Washington], Moran [Virginia], Ruppersberger [Maryland], and Van Hollen [Maryland].
There’s a Commission (part of the legislative branch) whose Chairperson is to be selected by the Speaker of the House, and an Advisory Board (selected by the majority leaders of the House and Senate), so is it any wonder why I consider this to be an extension of Obama’s current power grab?
And all of the costs of Directors, Experts, and Consultants are (of course) to be paid from taxpayer funds.
There’s something else that seems odd here: the bill calls for a Commission to study methods of improving and promoting volunteerism and national service (not public service, mind you), yet the bill also recognizes (in Section 2. (3) that national service and volunteerism are increasing. So why do we need a bill to do what is happening naturally, unless the bill’s creators want to play around with the process? Could it be that they want to manipulate national service and volunteerism for their own political purposes? Couldn’t be, could it?
I think that Republicans and third-party legislators should propose similar bills of their own, or at least change the authorship or sponsorship of the current bill to explicitly denote that the bill was not designed for particular partisan purposes.
Jeff V
How else will the socialist Democratic elite ensure they have mandatory indentured servants to do those icky-poo jobs they.
It looks like Obama’s promise of “new jobs” is to force America’s teenagers to join his brown-shirt corps, or be forced into other menial labors.