Podcast Transcript: 'The Power of Service'

Date: 01/13/2009 | Time: 06:43 | Size: 8.3 MB
 
NCFY talks to a group of young volunteers about what inspired them to give back to their communities.
 
NCFY: [music] Welcome to the Positive Youth Development Podcast Series by the Family and Youth Services Bureau within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The series is produced by the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth. I’m Jennifer Rich, a writer/editor with the clearinghouse.

Community service learning is an important way for young people to develop character and compassion. They also learn leadership and job skills that can help them into adulthood. The challenge is inspiring young people to get involved.

At a recent Youth Service America conference in Orlando, Florida, I talked to a group of dedicated young volunteers from across the country. I asked them what inspired them to get involved, what they’ve accomplished and how they inspired their peers. [music]

FS: I originally got inspired to serve because of this filmmaking group. I hadn’t known how to edit a movie or film a movie. But they kind of explained how to do that all. And once I learned how to do filmmaking, I realized that that could really be a good tool to help other people.

MS: I was surfing the Food Network website when I was about thirteen years old. And I came across an ad for a camp called Betty Crocker Great American Bake Sale Camp. And pretty much what that taught me was about child hunger in America. Before that, since I usually had ... well, I always had food at my fingertips, it never really occurred to me that children in my own community and my own school were being affected by this.

FS: We had like a community citizenship class. And it was just volunteering at that community with the park districts and then with like animal shelters. And that just like spurred something inside of me to like give back to my community at a young age. And I’ve been involved with Earth Beat for three years now. And so it’s just good just to like take care of the people around you.

FS: Actually, when I was in elementary school, I got involved in an organization called C-Cubed that inspired third through sixth graders to help in the community every month, to be able to do something. Whether it was actually helping one of our members move to picking oranges in a field, it was something that other people were doing in my class. And so I was just like, hey. This is cool. [music]

FS: So for the past few years, my sister and I have been making a lot of PSAs for different community organizations, for different benefits that we’ve done and things like that. And it’s actually really helped us. Because it’s allowing us to connect to the youth that we’re helping more and the communities are helping more. Because we’re behind the camera, which makes us feel like we’re there. But then it also hopefully will inspire other people when they see that movie. Because they’re also experiencing what the people we’re helping were experiencing.

MS: Within a couple of weeks of coming back from that camp, I held my first fundraiser. We fundraised $2,196. And from there, I just learned the impact that food can have on a child’s life, mentally, physically and emotionally. And I just felt it was unfair, it’s cruel, as well to ... for children not to have the same opportunities and advantages in life as I do when we live in the same country that is one of the wealthiest nations in the world.

FS: We have an event. It’s called Earthbeat. And it’s on the first weekend of May every year. Basically, we have about 1,000 students that come out and do forty different work projects throughout our study, whether that be mulching or repainting a gym.

MS: One of the greatest things we ever did was building a farm in the Bronx. And it was like an unbelievable, I mean, a farm in the Bronx. Who would have thunk? And so, we were just like with mulch and dirt. And people in the community were like this is unbelievable.

FS: I don’t know. I’ve participated in probably like twenty different volunteer organizations, gone around the world volunteering. And now I work in Mexico, you know. I aspire to work in international nonprofit management.

MS: We decided that we would plan a big community service project, have what we call a Stepnuts to Solutions conference to actually plan that community service project for each organization or each section of the community. And I’ve basically been involved ever since I was nine. And so I am proud to say that I am a veteran of service learning. And it’s been a very long time. [music]

FS: My service is filmmaking for other people. It’s writing for other people. It could be singing. Like if you incorporate these unique ideas of service. And so whatever you love doing can be incorporated into service in some way, then it really gets people inspired to help their communities. Because it’s not doing something they don’t want to do. It’s doing something they love to help someone else.

MS: It’s pretty much just as easy as opening your eyes to this cause. Because really it’s such an important cause. It’s people like my friends, the people in my school, my community, my classmates. That’s who’s being affected. When you bring it down to that level, people can understand what’s really going on. And then they’re more willing to get involved. Because this is people in their school. This is their friends that it’s affecting.

FS: We are young people. And a lot of times, people have this stereotypical fact that young people don’t take care of their community. When in fact there is like a small portion of people that do want to care. And it’s time to show the community what we can do.

MS: You know, you’re aware of the issues. And then there’s a big step between being aware and being active. Knowing that you can do something to make a difference. There are problems that have solutions. And just because you’re a youth doesn’t mean you can’t get involved. Because you can. And your voice is so powerful. [music]

NCFY: Several days are set aside each year for volunteer service around the country. January 19th is the Martin Luther King Day of Service. Global Youth Service Day starts on April 24th. For more information, visit our website at ncfy.acf.hhs.gov/communityservice.

And please join us next time when we talk to young people who are coping with relationship violence about how they got help. [music]

(END OF TRANSCRIPT)