You have given me a big subject to discuss today: -- Community Service...And, it’s a topic you probably know more about than I do. My memory of The Catholic Evidence League is that everyone in it gives a huge amount of time and thought to “Community Service”. Certainly that was true when my Mother was heavily and happily involved way back in the 1920’s!!!
Yes, that’s true...the 1920’s!! Not many of us remember those days personally, but I do. Baltimore was a great place to grow up in. The Cathedral School on Mulberry Street was a tip-top grammar school. Next to it the Hopper McGraw grocery and specialty food store was the best in the land, and across the street on Charles Street was Remington’s Book Store, one of the best in America! Up the street was The Box Tree Inn – excellent for lunch -- and the street cars were still going up and down town on Charles Street. I loved those days in Baltimore!!!
Thank you for inviting me back -- if only to reminisce!!
But, -- back to the subject -- Community Service...
Those very words -- to me -- also mean volunteering -- working in the Community, helping in the Community, freely giving oneself as a volunteer to assist in the solution of community problems.
Abraham and Moses were volunteers. Called by God, each of them said..."I will serve”.
Never forget they could have said “I will not serve”...that’s exactly what Satan said.
The men who started the United States of America were all Volunteers. No one drafted them. Many of their fellow citizens of Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York refused to volunteer. They were the Tories. They opposed the Revolution which was itself almost 100% a Volunteer movement! No one drafted Charles Carroll of Carrollton, or Samuel Chase, or William Paca of Maryland who signed the Declaration of Independence. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, to The Volunteer Movement which created our country.
Maryland itself has always been based on volunteerism. That’s one of the reasons why we speak of “The Free State”, -- a political place where men and women have always been free, -- free to pursue their own goals, their own hopes, free also to volunteer, free to serve.
The English word -- “volunteer” -- itself is of ancient origin. It’s based on the Latin word, “voluntas”, which, in Latin, meant “will”...my own “will,” your own “will”...Abraham’s and Moses’s own “wills”...Their words “I will serve” fully express the volunteer spirit...Satan’s words, -- “I will not serve,” fully express the negative spirit of those who refuse to help, refuse to cooperate, refuse to serve the greater good...Those who prefer the selfish course, those who fear “to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor”...
Everyone in Maryland who participates in the Governor’s Office on Volunteerism; everyone at this meeting who pledges to work unselfishly for the good of our church of our Catholics and of the citizens in Maryland, is part of the great historical tradition of our state and of America itself.
Without “volunteerism” the USA would be like the USSR -- a land where today there is no volunteer movement...a land of Tsars and Commissars...a land where orders come from on high...a land where historically everyone has done what they were told or forced to do.
Fortunately, the situation there is beginning to change. In February and March of last year -- 1990 -- the USSR officially applied to join “Special Olympics”. This tremendous volunteer movement, “Special Olympics”, was started right here in Maryland...started in Rockville, 23 years ago...now operating in 100 nations with more than 500,000 Volunteers, world-wide, -- many Special Olympics Volunteers will soon be Russians!” The first, free Russian volunteers working in “the private sector” in the recorded history of that immense land.
On December 7th, I’m going there to participate in the kick-off of a campaign to raise money from the Russian People for Special Olympics.
But, I’m getting ahead of my story. Talking about the history of volunteerism, I’ve failed to emphasize the word “service”.
So, please let me affirm: --
..."I believe volunteerism is an imperative,": --
- If we are to remain true to our American and Maryland history
- If we are to continue as fully, free citizens of a Free State, and
- If-we are to succeed in conquering the biggest internal problems now in our own country.
But, we must also serve, serve, serve...individually and freely.
Please listen to these words which I quote:
“America’s cities and population have turned into urban wastelands suffering from every social disease: -- abortion, teenage pregnancy, drugs, inadequate schools and teachers, family disintegration, widespread promotion of sex outside of marriage, homelessness, hunger, a growing underclass, the politically explosive, growing disparity between rich and poor.”
Lest you think this litany’ of problems is merely the mad ravings of a frustrated 1960’s Democrat, let me confess that I have stolen the whole list from a 1990 speech by George Romney, twice Republican Governor of Michigan, candidate for the Republican nomination for President, and former Chief Executive Officer of American Motors Corporation. He is no wide-eyed liberal without successful experience in our free enterprise system. Romney is an entrepreneur who led a company which created thousands of jobs and competed vigorously with the so-called “Big Three” auto manufacturers.
Is George Romeny a “liberal” when he calls for a “social perestroika”? Listen to his words, not mine, --
“Communism’s economic failure makes the Soviet Union’s future dependent on the success of its economic perestroika. At the same time, the magnitude of the United States’ economic success has spawned social problems that make our future dependent upon the organization and success of a social perestroika”.
Lyndon Johnson’s original “War Against Poverty” is an example of “social perestroika”.
We all know that the “War Against Poverty” has been vilified and ridiculed! We know it was a failure, don’t we?
That’s what we’ve been told by Ronald Reagan and a dozen Washington pundits, who’ve never served in a slum, nor tutored an Hispanic child as LBJ did, nor given work to an unemployed black man! But the truth is that under LBJ, the “War on Poverty” created “Head Start”, The Job Corps, Community Action, Foster Grandparents, Upward Bound, Community Health Centers, Legal Services, VISTA, College Work Study programs, ten National programs -- all still in existence -- all helping millions of Americans today!!!
All of these national programs have depended upon Volunteers for their success. All of them were proposed by Volunteers, and they were made into successes, in whole or in part, by Volunteers, who were willing to serve...at no cost!!!
Forgive me please, for talking about my own son, 24-year old Anthony Shriver. But, listen to these facts: --
Anthony started a new program three years ago when he was only a student at Georgetown University. He got 25 of his classmates to become “Best Buddies” for 25 mentally handicapped persons in the District of Columbia. Now, today, two and one-half years later, Anthony has “Best Buddies” volunteers at work in 90 Universities nation-wide. Next fall, he will have 150 universities involved. Some 5,000 volunteers will be working free-of-charge.
My son, Mark Shriver, decided to go to work three years ago in the tough, Cherry Hill section of Baltimore...Today he has created a Volunteer movement working with “children at risk”. He calls it “Choice”. Our Governor, and members of his Cabinet, have inspected the “Choice” program and decided to put our taxpayers’ money behind this unique movement started here in Maryland.
The new nationwide program called the “Community of Caring” for teenage mothers and their babies was started in Baltimore...at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, again with the inspiration and involvement of volunteers led by my wife, Eunice. Now this Maryland-based initiative has been adopted by California and Texas and Delaware. Thousands of teachers, students, and parents are involved.
Last year (1990), 45,000 policemen and other law enforcement officials in the USA will all volunteer their time to participate in the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics. They will raise $3.5 million in the USA alone. Another $2.0 million will be raised outside the USA by volunteer policemen running in Greece, France, Bermuda, Jamaica, Great Britain, Ireland, etc…
A solitary police chief in Kansas started this idea of a Torch Run for Special Olympics. He volunteered the idea, volunteers his time. Now, 45,000 Volunteers are following his lead and example.
I could go on and on about volunteers and service and the absolute need for the volunteer spirit, which is an essential part of our American heritage. But, then, a long talk would become too long. So, let me conclude with a story from my Peace Corps days:
Nothing will ever touch me more than the story I heard about a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa. It epitomizes the spirit which should permeate all our work as volunteers.
Nothing will ever touch me more than the story I heard about a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa. It epitomizes the spirit which should permeate all “our habits of the heart”. The story goes that a Peace Corps Volunteer was walking down a dusty road outside an African village up country. As he got near to the village, there was a mother and her child sitting alongside the road. The child said to the mother, “Look, Mother, there’s a white man!” And the mother said to the child, “No, darling, that’s not a white man -- that’s a Peace Corps Volunteer”.
Let us work together for the day whether in Africa or Asia or in the USSR, the day when nobody will say, “Look, there’s a white man” or “Look, there’s a poor man, or a rich man”, but only: “Look, there’s a volunteer who is serving his (or her) fellow human beings.”
