How will you serve?

This week the National Conference on Volunteerism and Service is being hosted in NYC by the Points of Light Foundation and the Corporation for National and Community Service.  Service is an important part of Playworks’ direct service program – next year 160 of our 270 schools will be staffed by AmeriCorps members (we’re accepting applications for coaches in all 16 cities).
 
One of the great people who will be speaking at the Conference is Shirley Sagawa.  Shirley is a visiting fellow with the Center for American Progress, a longtime advocate and builder of the national service movement and co-author of The Charismatic Organization with Deb Jospin.  Shirley’s most recent book, The American Way to Change , is an extraordinary book that describes a number of really extraordinary organizations (Playworks included).  Most importantly, the book puts a very real stake in the ground – namely, that service is the American way to change.
 
The national service movement has been around for a long time—William James and John Dewey both contributed to the foundation of service learning back in the early 1900’s.  The CCC and the WPA were created in the 1930s in response to the Great Depression. The 60’s saw the creation of the Peace Corps and VISTA. And in 1990, President Bush passed the National and Community Service Act, ultimately creating AmeriCorps. 

But we have not come as far as many hoped. We have not realized the dream so eloquently articulated in City Year’s vision, that one day the most commonly asked question of a young person will be, “Where are you going to do your service year?”
 
I believe that a focus on play in schools represents one of the best opportunities that exists for building a more robust and inclusive service movement.  There are a few things that young adults may just be constitutionally better suited to doing than their older counterparts:  falling in love, going to school, learning new languages, some would say serving in the military.  And I would add teaching younger kids a culture of play.
 
There are 60,000 public elementary schools in this country, and a service movement that focused on the power of play would be well-positioned to make sure that there was trained and caring person dedicated to making recess a healthy, happy and constructive part of every child’s day and the life of a school.  It is a very real contribution that young people could make, a much-needed service that schools want, and a practical, and cost-effective opportunity to unleash the full potential of our national service movement.