They did it for the children
LABASH, MATT
They Did It for the Children Or, What the Volunteerism Summit Was All About By Matt Labash Philadelphia Some of its own boosters sold the Presidents' Summit for America's Future short. They...
...That same spirit of earnestness is perhaps best embodied by former senator Harris Wofford, now head of Americorps and one of the Summit's conveners...
...Donate the paint to me—I would've done a better job...
...Because the Summit was not about showbiz...
...And as I'm not yet certain I'm ready for a physical relationship with him, Wofford stops cold for an impromptu call-and-response with neighborhood onlookers...
...Not just for today but for the next three years...
...And they will say the Summit champions cliche as epiphany, in language pinched from the irritating patois of New Age thinking, airport-paperback Babbittry, thick-stocking'd social workers, and third-sector gasbags who preface every utterance with the words "civic" or "civil...
...She has just created an Education Alliance, but it isn't quite up and running yet, and so she was flitting about the Summit...
...Michael Bolton, a very serious singer, was concerned about the Summit's becoming "a big photo-op...
...They told me I was going to be reading on Reading Corners throughout the streets," she said wistfully...
...But to understand what the Summit was all about, you must also understand what the Summit was not about...
...There was even a panel called "The Role of the Media" with 14 members of the cynical media, at least 12 of whom talked about how they could bring that Summit spirit to work with them every day thereafter...
...Okay, lots of them...
...Chicago, for instance, will "remove the visible and invisible barriers" that "limit human potential," with its "unique Chicago perspective: that all of our children are at risk if one of our children is at risk...
...The next 10 years...
...Good thinking, Chicago...
...Which is not to say the Summit was about something as shallow as appearances...
...I promise...
...Or photo-ops...
...I've already talked to Barbara Bush," he told me, "and she's been very receptive...
...He cares a lot...
...Personal commitments...
...They told us about the cynical media...
...And next year...
...So that if you're Carter, you appear to be a team player...
...Because that's what it's all about...
...Because the Summit was about "saving our children," about throwing in for the only cause that matters, about surrendering to your noblest instincts so that you transcend mere partisanship and appear to be something better than before...
...Yes...
...In fact, if one of these at-risk children with poor eyesight wants to buy contacts, he's free to go to Pearle Vision—and some children probably will...
...And then, in another feat of derring-do, Gore bent at the knees and leapt up on a railing like some kind of Mohawk Tennessean from the Lost Tribe of High Steel—in order to stand near a spire...
...He tells me about the other spirits of the Summit: of altruism, of service, of dead guys—the founding fathers, Martin Luther King, and George Romney (the late Michigan governor who first had the idea for the Summit...
...That's what the Summit was about: getting people excited...
...How are we gonna do that...
...And it is this devotion to process—to the breakout meetings, the plenaries, the Presidents' Summit, and the follow-up youth summits, community summits, PR summits, CEO summits, virtual sum-mits—that facilitates the diagramming, the paradigm-shifting, the thinking-outside-the-box-ing that will eventually save our children...
...I hope they didn't get paid for this shit...
...And why...
...The specifics, of course, have yet to be decided...
...They stood there together for the children, partisanship aside, obstructed from the chest up by the spire, which they weren't exactly hammering or screwing, just kind of for 10 minutes, they continued to guide, with their wheezing midriffs providing an unusually protracted photo-op...
...But he came anyway, because "there's a mutual networking that goes on where you find other people who have mutual causes...
...Just more questions...
...San Juan is going to identify its needs through "joint planning, decision making, implementation and evaluation . . . [to] provide a supporting structure...
...The Allentown survey suggested saving at-riskers by providing "a graffiti wall" and "yoga classes" as well as "bringing [the basketball rim] down for smaller people...
...Say it...
...But then, the cynical media are so . . . cynical...
...They don't know what it's all about...
...Great question," replied Maura, "and again, I think these should be raised in your delegation, because I don't think there are any set answers...
...Yes...
...Because that's what the Summit is about—becoming active at all levels, forcing yourself out of comfort and complacency, meeting challenges...
...asked one...
...Travolta showed up at a lunch with Powell and Clinton to push his idea to the top...
...But they're doing it now...
...Make the call, get the response...
...I have a dinner appointment at 5:30...
...Baby's Tire Shop, specifically...
...Because this portion of the Summit was not about words, but action...
...One frustrated youth who complained all the adults do is "plan, and plan, and plan" asked, "Can we go...
...Do something," they'd reply...
...Gary, Indiana, sees a "win-win situation" with major rescue efforts like taking out a "billboard advertising (the) Summit's goals and objectives...
...Keeping them excited...
...But most solutions evolve over time, and time involves process...
...Because even if these politicians at this non-political Summit don't have much experience with volunteerism themselves, they do know something about making promises...
...We walked together through a North Philly neighborhood, a somewhat bad neighborhood, and we thought we were lost, but Wofford didn't care...
...Do what...
...They painted over my address, there's paint all over the sidewalk, they didn't get high enough to cover all of the graffiti—and it's still showing through...
...guiding...
...It was not about politics...
...We've got to turn the tide for children and youth...
...The Summit wasn't about politics, dammit...
...Like the one way down Germantown Avenue, a dilapidated stretch of North Philadelphia selected by the Summit for graffiti-removal and general beautification...
...So the teenage delegates, who came from across the country and were part of larger adult delegations of volunteers, sat at a table with an adult facilitator named Maura from the philanthropic group Do Something...
...You're in on the kind of movement that Martin Luther King helped start...
...I promise...
...So that if you're Powell, you appear to stand for something...
...So earnest was the Summit that during a program highlighting the "lighter side of volunteerism" produced by the Comedy Central cable network, Donna Shalala and Arlen Specter were two of the "humorists...
...Sometimes it's necessary to look inward before we can look outward, to come up with creative solutions to age-old problems, to think "outside the box," as it were...
...Why were many able-bodied Germantown residents sitting on their stoops while the volunteers cleaned up their houses...
...Some celebrities...
...he asked, cracking a hesitant smile as he blew Newport smoke out his nostrils...
...It was a pretty sloppy-ass job...
...They probably haven't even been on the Web, to the Digital Neighborhood Summary Action Plans, where community by community, the participating Summit delegations have listed their "specific measurable results," their "community vision," and their plan to "mobilize new human, financial or other resources...
...And that's what Big Citizenship is all about—doing something big, anything, no matter how small, so that you can love yourself afterward...
...It wasn't about photo-ops or politics, howev-er—it was about "two guys trying to put a playground together," in the words of Powell, though the playground was nearly finished by the time they got there...
...The politicians told us that...
...Those works enabled him, a high-school dropout, to become a jet pilot...
...Other cynical media panelists (including our own Bill Kristol) thought that might be a bit much...
...So what that ex-president George Bush's people didn't want any emphasis on Clinton's Americorps (Clinton, who vowed to double the size of his paid volunteer force, mentioned it six times in a 2,000-word speech anyway...
...Like Clinton at the Summit: "After today is over, do you promise to keep working tomorrow...
...New Orleans will develop "a coordinated, cooperative effort with sustainable achievable outcomes...
...It was "the greatest assemblage of American leaders in the history of our country" (Ed Rendell...
...But it's refreshing to see such commitment...
...There was so much fame per square inch that nearly unnoticed was Miss America, Tara Holland, who was shadowed relentlessly by Democratic representative Mike McIntyre of North Carolina while she tossed mulch with a shovel in her formerly pristine Bally's monk-strap patent-leather shoes...
...What are 'at-risk' children...
...I asked him what he thought of the volunteers' work, seeing that there was much improvement, even though the trash had already begun gathering again in wind drifts against vacant storefronts...
...Upon arriving at the playground, he barely uttered a word...
...and they find ways to somehow pool their resources...
...And this is how we know the good work begun at the Summit will continue: because a promise is a promise...
...Are you ready...
...Dave's attitude was not what the Summit was all about...
...Albuquerque will save at-risk youth by "celebrating diversity" and pushing for "a bigger library," because—and this is kind of what the Summit is all about—"empowerment is a key word...
...Tragically, he had been gotten to by the cynical media...
...So what that Gore jostled to get onstage for that Call to Action, though this "is a Presidents' Summit, not a Vice-Presidents' Summit...
...But this is not a cynical advertising ploy on LensCrafters's part...
...I mean, about where we were...
...So that if you're Gore, you appear to be selfless...
...He is so earnest that as he talks and walks, he touches—my shoulder, my elbow, my back...
...After he emerged, and after another playground worker loosened bolts so Gore would have something to tighten when he came out, he met up with Powell on a six-foot-high platform...
...There was the volunteer photo-op, where Summit attendees blanketed the boulevard, restoring graffiti-bombed steel shutters on abandoned businesses to their original battleship gray...
...It was a "dazzling array of ideas and proposals" (Mario Cuomo...
...They're getting mulch on their Bally's, and why...
...Because her challenge, she said, was "to first of all stay sane in this business and healthy, to take care of myself, to be true to myself, and love myself...
...After standing in a circle and tossing pens at each other in order to learn the names of our new acquaintances (Watch out, April...
...Every solution is not to be found today...
...Right now, we're sort of networking," she said...
...So that if you're Bush, you appear to be vindicated and relevant...
...I met Dave when I went back to Germantown Avenue the day after the clean-up effort to see what the volunteers had wrought...
...Wofford touches and walks, and talks and touches...
...They are too linear, and don't know how to "empower" themselves by "making creative use of existing resources" in order to find "shared solutions...
...The way it works, and this hasn't been as widely publicized as the general commitment, is that an "at-risk" child can get a free eye exam...
...During the Nicetown photo-op, Gore wasted no time with pleasantries as his advancemen pushed other celebrities out of the way...
...They had been thinking about issues, starting their own foundations—all of this in the last week, in many cases...
...And, oh, it will also "allocate resources...
...Are you ready...
...So he immediately dove under the edifice in some kind of kamikaze Bob Vila tumble, out of the media's sight...
...True, many of the politicians who came here can claim a background in volunteerism only so far as they volunteered to come to the Summit to take small citizens to the woodshed for not being Big Citizens...
...Yes...
...Brooke Shields was happy that education was being extolled at the Summit as one of the most important "resources...
...So what that Jimmy Carter's "scheduling conflict," which allowed him to attend the first day's neighborhood clean-up but required him to leave town before sharing a stage with Clinton during the Summit's Call to Action, was just an excuse...
...Tons of them, actually...
...They called it a campaign for volunteerism, an effort to save 2 million at-risk children in three years, a drive for community renewal through corporate giving, and a blueprint to make sure every child has a safe place, an ongoing relationship with a caring adult, a healthy start, a marketable skill, and an opportunity to serve...
...It's like the president said: With the era of Big Government over, it's time for the era of Big Citizenship— and volunteerism...
...It is a virtue learned over time...
...Yes...
...It was about good intentions...
...Hatching new strategies to save the children and giving those children a voice...
...And it's, once again, about the children...
...But fine print aside, the LensCrafters commitment is just that—a commitment...
...It was about leading by example, encouraging other good people to do good things...
...But there is plenty of work to be done in the interim, saving children, planning the next summit, and beautifying communities, as the volunteers did Dave's...
...Facilitating dialogue and properly networking to put people in touch with valuable resources is really what the Summit is all about...
...And they all did, too...
...During one dizzying moment, you could see Colin and Alma Powell, Al and Tipper Gore, Arianna Huffington, Arlen Specter, the governor of New Hampshire, the lieutenant governor of Arkansas, and a third of the Philadelphia Eagles...
...LensCrafters is nothing like the media...
...They will say it lifts the onus of responsibility off the individual...
...I don't know that answer," said Maura, "and I think that's a good question that should be raised in your delegation to try and find an answer...
...No, Dave," I said...
...Let's go to work...
...They smiled, they embraced, they talked jungle-gym talk...
...Thank you, Tamika...
...It was an "earthquake" (Colin Powell), an attempt "to split the civic atom" (Harris Wofford...
...Yes...
...I didn't know its name until he told me, because Dave said the volunteers had painted clean over his sign...
...So what that Clinton's people were unhappy with all the attention afforded Powell, so they insisted a cabinet secretary be on every panel...
...Gore put such suspicions to rest when he said: "Let's put all the divisions behind us...
...Patience, my dear...
...It's about getting involved in the community, as Wynonna Judd promised to do "as a mother, as a wife...
...There was the native photo-op, where many neighborhood regulars had changed out of their usual Astroturf-patiowear-shower-shoe-and-tank-T-shirt rigs into their church suits and feather-boa hats and were asking journalists for programming schedules so they could watch themselves on TV...
...They seemed fairly serious about the Summit—fairly serious generally...
...Kind of like we did at the Young Leaders Plenary at the Summit...
...asked another...
...But its state of completion doesn't matter, because the Summit wasn't just about tangible results...
...Of course, if he has bad eyes and needs contact lenses, he'll have to pay for them...
...Okay, so there were some photo-ops...
...It is the language, they would say, of a guidance counselor crafting a resume for a graduate of a third-tier secretarial school...
...So what that, according to some Summit organizers who choose to remain anonymous, Al Gore had seen to it that possible presidential rival Bill Bradley was dropped as vice-chair in favor of Henry Cisneros...
...What he was doing, no one can say, though we know it was serious work because the vice president was sporting work gloves and a carpenter's apron...
...And this wasn't just off-the-cuff lip service...
...you might ask...
...In fact, most of the volunteers talked about the cynical media...
...Like Scientologist John Travolta, for instance, who at the Summit suggested exposing children to the curricula of L. Ron Hubbard...
...Until the job is done...
...And Okay, so there were some showbiz elements...
...It will most likely "redefine citizenship" (Bill Clinton) and "change the world" (Oprah...
...Most impressive of all was the Nicetown playground photo-op at the far end of Germantown, where a hulking jungle gym was being constructed on a patch of land about the size of a tennis court...
...For the children...
...Every fix is not as concrete and immediate as, say, the mayor's task force survey from Allentown, Pennsylvania, which was making the rounds at the Summit...
...we broke into small groups headed by facilitators...
...Because commitment is really what the Summit was all about...
...Consuelo Luz, president of the Hispanic Radio Network, even said that "there ought to be a law" mandating national service...
...He cares, of course...
...It was definitely not about photo-ops...
...And that really embodies the spirit of the Summit: the earnest advocacy of new ideas...
...Yes...
...Dave was sitting on a stack of tires, tracing his finger through the cornrows of his hair while chainsmoking Newports in front of his shop...
...And corporate commitments...
...It was so much more...
...Staff writer Matt Labash last wrote for The Weekly Standard about Ellen DeGeneres...
...Like LensCrafters's promise to provide eye care to 1 million needy children, or at least eye exams...
...When Maura refreshed us on the goal of the Summit—to save 2 million at-risk children—the youth grew inquisitive...
...Even the media talked about the cynical media—the 2,000 members of it who were at the Summit, who were courted so heavily by Summit organizers that lighting instructions were provided in our media guides for all the staged media events...
...They will say misapplied volunteerism and philanthropy replace the Nanny State with the Nanny Civil Society...
...You want my real opinion...
...Yes...
...Sure, it's easy to be cynical...
...But they weren't just there to add glitz...
...The cynical media will say that the Summit is little more than addiction to process...
...Powell, looking a little less eager, but not worried about being outdone since he's still not running in 2000, quickly followed suit...
Vol. 2 • May 1997 • No. 34
