Building Community Powell Not Talking Do-Gooders Only

Marching on Philadelphia last weekend, Gen. Colin Powell recruited an army to fight for America’s youth.

And when the Presidents’ Summit on America’s Future ended Tuesday, thousands of participants, including a delegation from Spokane, departed Philadelphia full of battlefield adrenalin, eager to muster their communities for action.

The summit’s five principles are unarguably worthy of sustained enthusiasm: Every child needs a caring adult in his or her life, a healthy start, safe and supervised places to be after school, an education that instills marketable skills, and an opportunity to give service back to the community.

The charge from Powell and the summit’s bipartisan political backing, is to meet those needs for 2 million at-risk youngsters by 2000.

No wonder, in a time of shrinking governmental participation, the summit focused so much attention on volunteerism. Volunteers can be either adults - as mentors, tutors, caregivers - or young people who, by their example, can revive a culture of community service.

Arousing the voluntary spirit in Americans is only part of the challenge, however. The energized volunteers still must be connected to the work that needs to be done.

As if to underscore that point, a massive local cleanup project on Philadelphia’s Germantown Avenue turned away busloads of frustrated delegates on the summit’s opening day. They had been encouraged to participate, but organizers weren’t prepared. There was work to do but nobody to direct all the volunteers, hand them brushes, show them the graffiti-marred walls to be repainted.

This deficiency won’t surprise understaffed nonprofit agencies that need volunteer help but, because they’re understaffed, can’t spare anyone to train and supervise the volunteers.

“I have 100 percent faith that we can get more volunteers,” Susan Ellis, president of a Philadelphia consulting and publishing company, says in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, “but I do not have 100 percent faith that we can get organizations to use them.”

This poses a problem for affected agencies as well as the public, private and nonprofit funders who usually want their dollars spent on services, not staff.

But the main challenge belongs to Spokane and other communities where summiteers are returning to a real-world atmosphere that commonly quenches enthusiasm.

The summit itself is over, its consciousness-raising task complete. Only if the public at large embraces the summit spirit can its bold but imperative objectives be realized.

As Powell said repeatedly during the summit, “We have no choice.”

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