gotchanewsdaily.com 
Regarding the Aug. 25 editorial, “How about national service for young people?”
Having been a VISTA volunteer in 1968, I can speak with firsthand experience about the impact of participating in a national service initiative. VISTA, which stands for Volunteers in Service to America, has long been referred to as the “domestic Peace Corps” program. The Peace Corps requires a two-year commitment, while VISTA is a one-year program.
As volunteers, we were trained by staff from the University of Maryland School of Social Work. It was clear to trainees that we were to serve as community organizers, and we were assigned to impoverished communities. Our monthly stipends were low enough that volunteers had to live at the same level as the low-income residents we served.
In the beginning, VISTA recruited mostly young White volunteers fresh from college. After some experience, VISTA changed its policy and recruited “indigenous” volunteers. I wondered what happened to the volunteers who worked in Pittsburgh and the surrounding communities to which I had been assigned, so I organized a couple of reunions decades after our years of service.
Here is what I found: A few volunteers had used their training to implement changes in public institutions. Racially biased policies in one public housing authority were eliminated. Allegheney County, Pa., examined and changed problematic policies and practices in the magistrate courts system. Funding for an early childhood development program was saved.
But the volunteers almost universally agreed that the biggest impact of their year of service was on themselves. Without exception, they agreed that they became more aware of and sensitive to the real problems of people living in poverty. And in most cases, their year of service caused them to reevaluate what type of career they desired.
Many of the volunteers had returned to their homes and sought employment in public service or nonprofit agencies. One became a respected city council member. Another became a judge; a third founded a nonprofit bakery. Still another became a counselor at a youth agency and then a forensic psychologist, counseling women in the state prison system.
I had intended to become a journalist. I majored in journalism and worked in the newsroom of my local paper for three years. But when I returned to my hometown, I worked for a community center, then headed up a Model City program. I came back to Pittsburgh and earned a master’s degree in social work, then founded a community technical assistance center.
My work as a VISTA volunteer and my postgraduate degree helped me to direct a community development program in Pittsburgh, and then downtown revitalization programs in Kalamazoo, Mich., Detroit and Des Moines. In 2001, I was named president of the International Downtown Association.
VISTA changed the direction of my life, as it did for so many others. The measure of a national service program is not only the impact of volunteers on the communities they serve, but also the impact on the volunteers themselves, as they continue to contribute to the communities in which they choose to reside.
David Feehan, Silver Spring
Connect the disconnected
Reading the recent editorial on national service, I particularly agreed with the sentiment that “the most profound benefits might flow to society at large, from instilling in a diverse group of participants a shared sense of service and duty, alleviating political apathy and building unity.” Further, I believe that this type of service can also instill confidence, compassion and other positive attributes in people who maybe haven’t experienced personal connection as extensively as the generations before them who were not so entrenched in the internet.
I agree that Congress and the service organizations that would benefit must make participation more accessible and affordable. I further suggest that in addition to offering participants increased pay and more geographic flexibility, other benefits, such as reduction of student or mortgage debt, could be offered in exchange for service commitments of varying lengths, similar to those offered to military enlistees. Getting more young people onto the public service path would be a win-win. Not only would society benefit, but the individual participants would also grow and learn how doing for others is rewarding in and of itself. More opportunities would present themselves, and doors, eyes and hearts would be opened.
Jan T. McCarthy, Keswick, Va.
Include retirees
I admit to regretting not joining the Peace Corps out of college. But I did benefit from my experience teaching overseas. That gave me a useful perspective as I pursued my career in consulting, in light of the importance of relationship-building and the collaborative — in my view — nature of instruction.
I would suggest that The Post’s proposal for national service include a component for retirees. In my retirement, I have enjoyed volunteering in several areas and have found associating and working with younger folks especially enjoyable. I believe that such multigenerational environments offer learning opportunities for all ages as well as cross-cultural points of view, both of which are critical for our society’s evolution. And implemented appropriately, with careful control, such a “retiree component” could provide useful, ongoing guidance and feedback for young people starting their lives and careers from those of us who are experienced in the general workforce.
Tom Martella, Washington
But keep it voluntary
I totally agree with The Post’s position against mandatory national service, even though a 2017 Gallup Poll showed that almost half of Americans favor such a requirement. One has only to examine Maryland’s requirement that high school students complete 75 hours of service before graduation.
In 1993, under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Maryland became the first state in the nation to enact such a requirement. Maryland called the program “service learning” because it included a reflection component that consisted of a written essay examining the effects of one’s service. The requirement was enacted to teach students that they could make a difference and become good citizens, and that they had something to offer.
But as the service learning coordinator at Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, Md., for many years, I admit that it never achieved such goals, as hard as we tried to make the program work. I remember having to come up with many service ideas for those students who could not have cared less. I packed my car with uninterested high-schoolers to take them to local nursing homes to interact with elders in intergenerational programs that some thought would be beneficial. And my colleagues and I scratched our heads to find places that might accept students who had no incentive or interest in doing anything useful as long as they could meet the requirement to graduate.
Recording service hours was a nightmare of paperwork. We needed to document testimony from parents and agency directors that, yes, the 75 hours were completed. Some students attested to raking leaves for their neighbors, walking their dogs, babysitting for children during PTA meetings and cleaning up cigarette butts at the local mall, tasks that hardly accomplished the larger purpose of the program. And in a few cases where students didn’t complete their obligation, the principal allowed those students to help park cars at the graduation ceremony to count as “service.”
So how effective is such a requirement? I always wanted the program to be voluntary so I could showcase the few young people whose outstanding examples of service would motivate others. And those students did exist: Some wrote and illustrated their own books and then went into elementary schools to tutor those with reading difficulties. Others accompanied the infirm and elderly into admissions at Montgomery General Hospital. A few history buffs spent their weekends giving tours at the Sandy Spring Museum. And there are others who gave so much time, energy and allowance money to make the requirement meaningful and exemplary.
But such commitment can’t be required, it can’t be limited to 75 hours, and it certainly can’t be legislated. Those students who performed exemplary public service were motivated from the beginning because they had an interest in the area in which they chose to serve and they had the support of friends, faculty and family. No requirement or Unity Through Service Act made them role models as they personified leadership and furthered their career goals while, as the editorial put it, “alleviating political apathy and building unity.”
We need to shine a spotlight on our youths already engaged in service and commitment. They are to be found in every high school, if we just look for them and feature them in the media, or offer a monetary reward so they can show national service in all its glory and desirability.
Kathy A. Megyeri, Washington
