LETTERS
LETTERS Voluntary Responses Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s article (“The Forgotten Virtue of Voluntarism:’ October) struck a responsive chord. As confirmed volunteers, we in the League of Women...
...I was particularly impressed by Jeffrey Toobin’s sidebar, “Why I Walk the Beat:’ because I’m an auxiliary sergeant here in New York...
...DON WINTER Washington, D.C...
...and there was but one rape all that summer...
...CALVIN MAYNE Rochester, New York Washington, V.D...
...No less a liberal than John Gardner, retiring chairman of Independent Sector, has written: “We all have to have something to work for outside ourselves, somethhg bigger than ourselves...
...I speak from personal experience: when I returned to full-time employment several years ago a great many people assumed I would at the same time withdraw from volunteer activity...
...Congratulations to you and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend for “The Forgotten Virtue of Voluntarism!’ It’s about time someone reminded us that we do have the power to make things better for someone other than ourselves...
...Toobin more than adequately described the pride we feel in our effort to curb crime and help our fellow citizens, despite hours of boredom and moments of terror...
...Imagine how William J. Casey feels...
...Volunteerism (to spell the word another way) and philanthropy have long been an integral part of America’s democratic traditions...
...However, less than one-third of those who volunteered spent as much as two hours a week in voluntary activities...
...DONALD ALLEN GROSS ART ELLISON Concord, New Hampshire Kathleen Kennedy Townsend made an excellent point when she wrote that conservatives in or out of the Reagan administration should not be permitted by liberals to monopolize this worthy cause...
...They have demonstrated that-the Shrivers, Kennedys, etc.-and have said so...
...DOROTHY S. RIDINGS Washington, D.C...
...Our park is called Prospect, and while it is smaller than Central Park its reputation for crime was just as large-until three years ago...
...Governor Hunt is right when he says “money is no substitute for getting involved with your hands and your heart:’ but it is clear to those of us involved with both volunteer and classroom-based programs in the field of adult literacy that the active involvement of volunteers is still no substitute for money...
...ailments:’ Whatever the personal and political frets and ailments of today’s liberals, they can find a welcome antidote in giving of themselves to help their favorite charities and causes in ways that government cannot and should not...
...In comparison to crime statistics recorded in the summer of 1980, overall crime dropped better than 40 percent...
...Among federal employees I know (and I know a bunch), a tour in Washington, D.C...
...Yet the common assumption continues to be that a woman will cease to be a volunteer once she takes on paid employment...
...Try to do that and the rich will close ranks immediately...
...In the summer of 1981 Prospect Park was “invaded” by 350 auxiliary officers, and in a threemonth period our usefulness was proved...
...This study found that 52 percent of American adults and 53 percent of teenagers had volunteered during the previous year...
...Just to add to the information he has already imparted, I thought you might like to know that, on the average, the 8,000 auxiliary officers in New York volunteer 100,000 hours monthly and that many have received official commendations from the police department...
...Re: “Tilting at Windmills:’ October, “. . . tendency of federal employees to prefer work in Washington...
...the robbery rate went down 61 percent...
...E. WILLIAMS Anchorage, Alaska Not to Mention His BS About the Casey/Neuharth item in “Tilting at Windmills” [November]: As a holder of the Bronze Star Medal (BSM), the Army Commendation Medal (ARCOM), the National Defense Service Medal (NDSM), the Vietnam Service Medal (VSM), and the Good Conduct Medal (GCM), I am aware of the luster their acronyms add to my copy of DD 214 (separation from active service...
...I am astounded at the number of voluntary organizations that lament the passing of voluntarism without examining their own practices and procedures that make it almost impossible for the employed woman to participate-and I say “woman” deliberately, since women have historically made up the largest population of the voluntary ’sector...
...That conservatives can do the same makes volunteerism not only a bipartisan but a wholly American virtue...
...The return of many women to the workforce has had a profound impact on this traditional core of the volunteer movement...
...Another striking aspect of the Gallup study, of particular concern to organizations such as ours, is the very small percentage of voluntary activity devoted to citizenshi6 and political work...
...The League is one of the voluntary organizations seeking to adapt...
...If anyone asks what the ordinary citizen can do about crime, tell him what we have done in Brooklyn...
...or even frequent visits) is about as welcome as a case of Herpes 11-and considered to be about as enduring...
...In my judgment, a resurgence of voluntarism is unlikely to come about unless voluntary organizations adapt to change...
...To help us understand and adjust to the economic, political, and demographic trends that have changed the nature of voluntarism in America, we looked at data from “Americans Volunteet’ a 1981 Gallup study...
...I’ Surely you jest...
...I am convinced that organizers of volunteer services must recognize that they cannot turn people away who are unable or unwilling to devote their lives to “the cause!’ We simply must make accommodations to changes in volunteers’ time schedules as well as their lifestyles if voluntarism is to thrive...
...Townsend and her kind of people will do anything for the poor except change the conditions that caused the poverty in the first place...
...Townsend is right to sound the alarm that the spirit of voluntarism has fallen on hard times...
...Dorothy Ridings is president of the League of Women Voters...
...G. VAN MATRE Washington, D.C...
...Why don’t you try to get some balance in the articles you print in your magazine...
...Upon honorably departing his post as director of the CIA, his discharge papers will describe his highest decoration, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, as DIM...
...Four million volunteers are needed to teach illiterate adults...
...As confirmed volunteers, we in the League of Women Voters know firsthand the important personal and community benefits that come from volunteer involvement...
...DONALD ALLEN GROSS Brooklyn, New York Kathleen Kennedy Townsend‘s well-written article on voluntarism accurately sets forth the need in our society for volunteers, but in the process she implies that government funding for a variety of basic needs is somehow an inappropriate solution...
...In my precinct, the 70th (which takes in the Flatbush and Midwood sections of Brooklyn), we share something with Manhattan residents-a park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead...
...The unhappiest people are the ones who never escape the prison of self, never find a cause worthier than their own frets and...
...however if only 1 percent of that number (40,000) were involved in lobbying local, state, and federal governments for substantial new funding, the benefits to illiterate adults would far exceed the gains achieved by those 40,000 volunteer adults tutoring illiterate students...
...The article by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is an illustration of the gyrations some people go through to avoid change and keep the system as it is...
Vol. 15 • December 1983 • No. 9
