csmonitor--2020-04-01--Faces of the new jobs crisis, from restaurants to real estate

“ I ’ m the captain of my own ship , ” says Dennis Roberson , a divorced and now unemployed father in Georgia , down to his last $ 200 .
“ And it ’ s not moving at the moment.
” In Chicago , food-service workers are offering free food to former colleagues .
And a new GoFundMe campaign hopes to raise $ 50,000 to help 100 gig workers on the dole .
For people like Jesús Morales , a Chicago hotel worker now relying on unemployment benefits to pay his bills , the top-of-mind concern is when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ storms typically wreak more havoc on trailer parks than ritzy suburbs , this one appears to have hit the most vulnerable workers first , especially those in close contact with the public .
Some help is on the way in the form of onetime federal checks for low- and middle-income adults , and higher and longer-lasting unemployment benefits , with rules loosened to include gig workers and the self-employed .
Three weeks ago , workers like food server Dolly Harris in South Haven , Michigan , and handbill entrepreneur Cam Jennings in Las @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t .
The threat of the coronavirus has hit the economy like a tempest out of nowhere .
With terrible timing – like buying stocks in 1929 – Cam Jennings started his company , ACTIVATE.vegas , on March 2 .
The start-up ’ s mission is printing and distributing handbills for businesses on the Las Vegas Strip .
Two weeks later , Nevada ’ s governor ordered all the casinos to close , and Mr. Jennings had no choice but to suspend operations .
“ We kind of hit the ground running @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no Strip to get running on , ” he says , ruefully .
For Alyson Arnold of Warwick , Rhode Island , the problem was postponements .
A ceremony officiant , specializing in outdoor weddings , she was preparing to conduct 60 weddings in 2020 , her best year ever .
But in early March , as concerns grew about travel , the postponements began rolling in : two in March , three in April .
Of the five ceremonies scheduled in May , two are already being rescheduled .
One of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Everyone ’ s sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for what will happen , ” she says .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , we ’ ve removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .
Three weeks ago , these workers had jobs .
Suddenly they don ’ t .
The threat of the coronavirus hit the economy like a tempest out of nowhere .
And just as storms typically wreak more havoc on trailer parks than ritzy suburbs , this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vulnerable workers first .
But there ’ s more : Because “ social distancing ” is the essence of the virus response , jobs rooted in social contacts face some of the biggest disruptions .
Those , like Mr. Jennings , in the experiential marketing industry , staffing booths at conventions or handing out branded memorabilia at sporting events , quickly lost gigs when the first restrictions on huge crowds were put in place .
Self-employed people reliant on private gatherings , like Ms. Arnold , were next .
Now , the forced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the United States has pushed huge numbers of full-time employees – often in low-paid service industries – onto the unemployment rolls .
Dennis Roberson , a divorced father of four , can chuckle about his last paycheck from the Wormhole – a bar and music venue in Savannah , Georgia , that like other nonessential businesses in town was forced to close .
The check got torn in half by accident .
When he went to cash it Monday , it got a little surreal .
There was a long queue outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one .
It was “ one in , one out , ” he says .
Still , the check cleared .
Its amount : $ 195 .
“ I realized that ’ s all I have for the foreseeable future , ” he says .
“ Pretty wild.
” Now , he has arrived at Forsyth Park , sporting a knit cap , sunglasses , and a white beard , after biking to Domino ’ s to pick up a free pizza from a promotion .
He sits down under a tree to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and closes his eyes .
It ’ s not yet clear how many Americans have been laid off .
Last week , the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that a record 3.3 million workers filed a first-time claim for unemployment – more than four times the previous record set in 1982 .
This week 's Thursday report set another new record , 6.6 million more for a two-week total near 10 million .
On Wednesday , payroll firm ADP ’ s research institute released a report showing that as early as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wholesale trade , transportation , construction , and administrative support services ( including temp work ) were starting to shed thousands of workers .
“ Much bigger job losses are coming , ” warns Mark Zandi , chief economist of Moody ’ s Analytics .
Some 56 % of U.S. counties , representing 80 % of the nation ’ s GDP , are in some form of lockdown , he says , although many employees continue to work from home .
In all , about a quarter of the economy is shut down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the unemployment rate to hit 10 % to 13 % this month .
That would be as bad or worse than at the height of the Great Recession .
Some economists expect even higher levels of unemployment .
The data also suggest that workers in some of the lowest-paid occupations were among the first to be laid off .
“ Low and low-middle income households are being hit hardest by the crisis , ” Mr. Zandi says .
In Massachusetts , one of the top five states reporting first-time jobless claims last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health-care and social assistance sector .
These workers run the gamut .
Nearly half of them are home health aides , delivering care to the home-bound and earning nationally an average $ 24,000 a year .
The rest are licensed nurses ( earning twice as much ) and medical and health services managers ( earning four times as much ) .
Last week , more than 18,000 of them filed for unemployment in Massachusetts , up from 440 the week before , a mind-bending 4,000 % increase .
“ Over 37 million U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the short term , ” conclude researchers at Cornell University ’ s law school .
That ’ s assuming that the current crisis does not result in wider-spread , long-term layoffs .
Of those 37 million nonsupervisory jobs , all but 2 million are low-quality , low-paid ones paying less than $ 28,000 a year , as measured by the researchers ’ U.S .
Private Sector Job Quality Index .
The biggest group , more than a quarter of those at risk : workers in restaurants and other food-service positions .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Haven , Michigan , Dolly Harris has been a server at downtown ’ s Phoenix Street Café for 19 years .
She and her co-workers were laid off March 16 , as Gov .
Gretchen Whitmer called on restaurants and bars to close except for takeout or deliveries .
Now Ms. Harris will be relying on Social Security and unemployment benefits to help make ends meet .
She was able to complete the online process of applying for unemployment after a few frustrating hours of system freeze-ups .
As of March 29 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she will be receiving , but expects to learn this week .
Finances aren ’ t the main concern for Ms. Harris .
The virus is top of mind , particularly because her husband has been diagnosed with a pulmonary disease that makes breathing difficult .
“ I ’ m afraid to go out and do something in public , ” Ms. Harris says .
“ I thought about working a job at Meijer [ a regional supermarket ] , but I really don ’ t want to bring anything home like the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ current downturn is its speed .
“ It was like bing , bang , boom !
Next day , no restaurants !
” says Joe Ryal , a bartender at a restaurant on Chicago ’ s North Side .
“ We ’ re all unprepared.
” Retail workers face similar shocks .
This week , a slew of chains announced extended closures and furloughs , including Macy ’ s ( a majority of its 125,000 employees ) and JCPenney ( many of its 85,000 workers ) .
And the sudden brake-pedal on economic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alone .
“ I ’ m 100 % commission based .
When they issue a stay-at-home order , they made us part of that , ” says Eric , a commercial realtor in the southwest part of Michigan who declined to have his last name published .
Because of the long lag time between showing a property and closing a sale , “ the impact if you ’ re not working can be severe .
...
When you have three months where you can ’ t show any properties , that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ re not making money.
” How long the virus threat and its economic repercussions will last is a burning question for many of the newly unemployed .
“ To be honest , it ’ s been pretty scary , ” says Ashley D. , a bartender at a major national restaurant chain outlet in Oakland County , Michigan .
“ I ’ m hopeful life will be back to normal in a few months , but even if this did all quickly resolve or improve , I ’ m afraid it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people to feel comfortable coming back , both employees and guests .
I know I ’ m leery about coming back right away.
” “ We are confident , we are thinking hopefully , that business will come back , ” says Jesús Morales , who worked conventions , banquets , and private meetings for 33 years at the Drake , one of Chicago ’ s fanciest hotels , serving the wealthy and occasionally the famous , including Bill Clinton , George W. Bush , and Princess Diana .
( Noticing his name @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delighted to be served by a man named Jesus , he recalls . )
When tips were generous , he could bring home more than $ 1,000 a week .
Now , as he relies on unemployment payments to cover his bills , he worries about when the hotel business and other activity will recover .
“ I don ’ t think it will come back as strong as before .
I think it ’ s going to take a while , ” he says .
According to Mr. Zandi , the economist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years to get back to something resembling full employment .
Some help is on the way to ease the adjustment .
Congress ’ s new $ 2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid , Relief , and Economic Security ( CARES ) Act authorizes $ 1,200 for adults and $ 500 for children in low- and middle-income families .
Checks are expected to go out over the next three weeks .
Unemployment benefits also get a boost over the next four months : extra money and extra weeks of eligibility .
Crucially , for many of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the guidelines have been loosened so they qualify for the first time .
Ms. Arnold , the wedding officiant in Rhode Island , was able to sign up online on Monday .
Mr. Jennings , the Las Vegas handbill entrepreneur , has had too many gigs to file online and so far has only gotten a busy signal when calling in to the unemployment office .
In the meantime , he ’ s serving as spokesman for the Help the Gig Economy – Coronavirus Income Relief fund , a GoFundMe campaign aimed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who often travel from state to state to work conventions and other events .
The sponsors aim to raise $ 50,000 in 100 days .
As of Wednesday , they ’ d raised more than $ 5,400 and helped 12 of the more than 600 people who have applied for aid .
“ It ’ s been very grassroots , ” Mr. Jennings says .
“ Most of our donations are people within the industry kicking in 20 bucks.
” A similar spirit is taking place in Chicago as workers in the food @ @ @ @ @ @ @ On a warm spring day , the newly jobless Mr. Ryal has just emerged from the Big Star restaurant , which is giving away free food to workers in the service industry from 5 to 7 p.m – a scene repeated at other venues around the city .
“ I ’ ll be able to survive , ” says Mr. Ryal , holding a brown paper bag of groceries and a Styrofoam container holding a serving of carne asada .
“ We ’ re leaning on other people.
” Back in Savannah , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the stay-at-home order .
“ I ’ m the captain of my own ship – and it ’ s not moving at the moment , ” says Mr. Roberson , the now-unemployed father .
“ Still , my plan for now is just to ride the waves to where they are going to take me.
” He looks down at the pizza box .
His predicament of looming poverty isn ’ t so dire as to exclude consideration for others .
“ Want a slice ?
” he asks .
This story was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Waltham , Massachusetts , and Patrik Jonsson in Savannah , Georgia , and by contributors Lee A .
Dean in Plainwell , Michigan , and Richard Mertens in Chicago .
Editor ’ s note : The story was updated on April 2 with new jobless-claim numbers .
As a public service , we ’ ve removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

“I’m the captain of my own ship,” says Dennis Roberson, a divorced and now unemployed father in Georgia, down to his last $200. “And it’s not moving at the moment.”
In Chicago, food-service workers are offering free food to former colleagues. And a new GoFundMe campaign hopes to raise $50,000 to help 100 gig workers on the dole. For people like Jesús Morales, a Chicago hotel worker now relying on unemployment benefits to pay his bills, the top-of-mind concern is when job opportunities will return.
Every economic downturn has a different face. These are the people confronting the biggest challenges after the initial wave of shutdowns.
Just as storms typically wreak more havoc on trailer parks than ritzy suburbs, this one appears to have hit the most vulnerable workers first, especially those in close contact with the public. Some help is on the way in the form of onetime federal checks for low- and middle-income adults, and higher and longer-lasting unemployment benefits, with rules loosened to include gig workers and the self-employed.
Three weeks ago, workers like food server Dolly Harris in South Haven, Michigan, and handbill entrepreneur Cam Jennings in Las Vegas had jobs. Suddenly they don’t. The threat of the coronavirus has hit the economy like a tempest out of nowhere.
With terrible timing – like buying stocks in 1929 – Cam Jennings started his company, ACTIVATE.vegas, on March 2. The start-up’s mission is printing and distributing handbills for businesses on the Las Vegas Strip. Two weeks later, Nevada’s governor ordered all the casinos to close, and Mr. Jennings had no choice but to suspend operations.
“We kind of hit the ground running on the Strip, but there was no Strip to get running on,” he says, ruefully.
For Alyson Arnold of Warwick, Rhode Island, the problem was postponements. A ceremony officiant, specializing in outdoor weddings, she was preparing to conduct 60 weddings in 2020, her best year ever. But in early March, as concerns grew about travel, the postponements began rolling in: two in March, three in April. Of the five ceremonies scheduled in May, two are already being rescheduled.
Why We Wrote This Every economic downturn has a different face. These are the people confronting the biggest challenges after the initial wave of shutdowns.
One of the worst things? The uncertainty. “Everyone’s sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for what will happen,” she says.
Editor’s note: As a public service, we’ve removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.
Three weeks ago, these workers had jobs. Suddenly they don’t. The threat of the coronavirus hit the economy like a tempest out of nowhere. And just as storms typically wreak more havoc on trailer parks than ritzy suburbs, this one appears to have hit the most vulnerable workers first. But there’s more: Because “social distancing” is the essence of the virus response, jobs rooted in social contacts face some of the biggest disruptions.
Those, like Mr. Jennings, in the experiential marketing industry, staffing booths at conventions or handing out branded memorabilia at sporting events, quickly lost gigs when the first restrictions on huge crowds were put in place. Self-employed people reliant on private gatherings, like Ms. Arnold, were next.
Now, the forced closure of nonessential businesses in many parts of the United States has pushed huge numbers of full-time employees – often in low-paid service industries – onto the unemployment rolls.
Dennis Roberson, a divorced father of four, can chuckle about his last paycheck from the Wormhole – a bar and music venue in Savannah, Georgia, that like other nonessential businesses in town was forced to close. The check got torn in half by accident. When he went to cash it Monday, it got a little surreal.
There was a long queue outside the bank. That was a new one. It was “one in, one out,” he says. Still, the check cleared. Its amount: $195. “I realized that’s all I have for the foreseeable future,” he says. “Pretty wild.”
Richard Mertens View caption Hide caption Jesus Morales, who lost his job at The Drake hotel, stands in front of his home in Chicago.
Now, he has arrived at Forsyth Park, sporting a knit cap, sunglasses, and a white beard, after biking to Domino’s to pick up a free pizza from a promotion. He sits down under a tree to eat, puts his ear buds in, and closes his eyes.
It’s not yet clear how many Americans have been laid off. Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that a record 3.3 million workers filed a first-time claim for unemployment – more than four times the previous record set in 1982. This week's Thursday report set another new record, 6.6 million more for a two-week total near 10 million.
On Wednesday, payroll firm ADP’s research institute released a report showing that as early as mid-March, sectors such as retail and wholesale trade, transportation, construction, and administrative support services (including temp work) were starting to shed thousands of workers.
Biggest effects among low-paying jobs
“Much bigger job losses are coming,” warns Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. Some 56% of U.S. counties, representing 80% of the nation’s GDP, are in some form of lockdown, he says, although many employees continue to work from home. In all, about a quarter of the economy is shut down, he estimates, so he expects the unemployment rate to hit 10% to 13% this month.
That would be as bad or worse than at the height of the Great Recession. Some economists expect even higher levels of unemployment. The data also suggest that workers in some of the lowest-paid occupations were among the first to be laid off. “Low and low-middle income households are being hit hardest by the crisis,” Mr. Zandi says.
In Massachusetts, one of the top five states reporting first-time jobless claims last week, the biggest surge came in the health-care and social assistance sector. These workers run the gamut. Nearly half of them are home health aides, delivering care to the home-bound and earning nationally an average $24,000 a year. The rest are licensed nurses (earning twice as much) and medical and health services managers (earning four times as much). Last week, more than 18,000 of them filed for unemployment in Massachusetts, up from 440 the week before, a mind-bending 4,000% increase.
“Over 37 million U.S. jobs may be vulnerable to potential layoffs in the short term,” conclude researchers at Cornell University’s law school. That’s assuming that the current crisis does not result in wider-spread, long-term layoffs. Of those 37 million nonsupervisory jobs, all but 2 million are low-quality, low-paid ones paying less than $28,000 a year, as measured by the researchers’ U.S. Private Sector Job Quality Index. The biggest group, more than a quarter of those at risk: workers in restaurants and other food-service positions.
Concerns beyond finances
In the Lake Michigan shoreline community of South Haven, Michigan, Dolly Harris has been a server at downtown’s Phoenix Street Café for 19 years. She and her co-workers were laid off March 16, as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called on restaurants and bars to close except for takeout or deliveries. Now Ms. Harris will be relying on Social Security and unemployment benefits to help make ends meet. She was able to complete the online process of applying for unemployment after a few frustrating hours of system freeze-ups. As of March 29, she still did not know how much she will be receiving, but expects to learn this week.
Finances aren’t the main concern for Ms. Harris. The virus is top of mind, particularly because her husband has been diagnosed with a pulmonary disease that makes breathing difficult. “I’m afraid to go out and do something in public,” Ms. Harris says. “I thought about working a job at Meijer [a regional supermarket], but I really don’t want to bring anything home like the virus.”
The distinguishing feature of the current downturn is its speed. “It was like bing, bang, boom! Next day, no restaurants!” says Joe Ryal, a bartender at a restaurant on Chicago’s North Side. “We’re all unprepared.”
Courtesy of Kristen Kloostra View caption Hide caption Kristen Kloostra, a massage therapist, yoga instructor, and small business owner in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, had to shut down her business and has no other source of income. Her situation exemplifies how jobs that normally involve close proximity among people are heavily at risk in the coronavirus emergency.
Retail workers face similar shocks. This week, a slew of chains announced extended closures and furloughs, including Macy’s (a majority of its 125,000 employees) and JCPenney (many of its 85,000 workers).
And the sudden brake-pedal on economic activity isn’t affecting low-paid occupations alone.
“I’m 100% commission based. When they issue a stay-at-home order, they made us part of that,” says Eric, a commercial realtor in the southwest part of Michigan who declined to have his last name published. Because of the long lag time between showing a property and closing a sale, “the impact if you’re not working can be severe. ... When you have three months where you can’t show any properties, that’s more like eight or nine months where you’re not making money.”
How long the virus threat and its economic repercussions will last is a burning question for many of the newly unemployed.
“To be honest, it’s been pretty scary,” says Ashley D., a bartender at a major national restaurant chain outlet in Oakland County, Michigan. “I’m hopeful life will be back to normal in a few months, but even if this did all quickly resolve or improve, I’m afraid it would take a lot of time for people to feel comfortable coming back, both employees and guests. I know I’m leery about coming back right away.”
“We are confident, we are thinking hopefully, that business will come back,” says Jesús Morales, who worked conventions, banquets, and private meetings for 33 years at the Drake, one of Chicago’s fanciest hotels, serving the wealthy and occasionally the famous, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Princess Diana. (Noticing his name tag, she told him she was delighted to be served by a man named Jesus, he recalls.)
When tips were generous, he could bring home more than $1,000 a week. Now, as he relies on unemployment payments to cover his bills, he worries about when the hotel business and other activity will recover.
“I don’t think it will come back as strong as before. I think it’s going to take a while,” he says.
According to Mr. Zandi, the economist, it will take three to four years to get back to something resembling full employment.
Some help is on the way to ease the adjustment. Congress’s new $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act authorizes $1,200 for adults and $500 for children in low- and middle-income families. Checks are expected to go out over the next three weeks. Unemployment benefits also get a boost over the next four months: extra money and extra weeks of eligibility. Crucially, for many of the newly jobless gig workers and self-employed, the guidelines have been loosened so they qualify for the first time.
Ms. Arnold, the wedding officiant in Rhode Island, was able to sign up online on Monday. Mr. Jennings, the Las Vegas handbill entrepreneur, has had too many gigs to file online and so far has only gotten a busy signal when calling in to the unemployment office.
Helping each other
In the meantime, he’s serving as spokesman for the Help the Gig Economy – Coronavirus Income Relief fund, a GoFundMe campaign aimed at helping 100 experiential marketing workers, who often travel from state to state to work conventions and other events. The sponsors aim to raise $50,000 in 100 days. As of Wednesday, they’d raised more than $5,400 and helped 12 of the more than 600 people who have applied for aid.
“It’s been very grassroots,” Mr. Jennings says. “Most of our donations are people within the industry kicking in 20 bucks.”
A similar spirit is taking place in Chicago as workers in the food industry rally to help each other. On a warm spring day, the newly jobless Mr. Ryal has just emerged from the Big Star restaurant, which is giving away free food to workers in the service industry from 5 to 7 p.m – a scene repeated at other venues around the city.
“I’ll be able to survive,” says Mr. Ryal, holding a brown paper bag of groceries and a Styrofoam container holding a serving of carne asada. “We’re leaning on other people.”
Back in Savannah, Forsyth Park is nearly empty due to the stay-at-home order.
“I’m the captain of my own ship – and it’s not moving at the moment,” says Mr. Roberson, the now-unemployed father. “Still, my plan for now is just to ride the waves to where they are going to take me.”
He looks down at the pizza box. His predicament of looming poverty isn’t so dire as to exclude consideration for others. “Want a slice?” he asks.
This story was reported by Monitor staff writers Laurent Belsie in Waltham, Massachusetts, and Patrik Jonsson in Savannah, Georgia, and by contributors Lee A. Dean in Plainwell, Michigan, and Richard Mertens in Chicago.
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Editor’s note: The story was updated on April 2 with new jobless-claim numbers.
As a public service, we’ve removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-04-01--Virus 'angel': S. Korean cobbler donates land to help others

Kim Byung-rok survived tuberculosis as a young man but in his work polishing and mending shoes the debris proved to be too much for his lungs .
So when he bought land on a small , quiet mountain in 2014 , he wanted to heal , to do some farming – and to breathe fresh air .
But now Mr. Kim wants to donate a big chunk of his holdings to the local government .
So many South Koreans are shutting their businesses and face declining incomes due to the coronavirus outbreak , which has hit the country hard ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ land could be put to good use .
`` I went through a rough childhood and I got help from others all the time .
I 've always thought I should one day become a person who helps others , '' Mr. Kim said at his Seoul shop , the thick grime under his nails testimony to how he spends his days .
`` Would n't it be good if I give the people strength and courage ? ''
he said .
It has had that effect .
An online media story on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comments .
Some call him `` an angel '' or `` a person who deserves a seat in heaven . ''
Mr. Kim 's three plots of land are located in Paju , near the border with North Korea .
He bought the land when its prices plummeted due to North Korean missile tests , before they rose again after inter-Korean relations improved in recent years .
He 's since planted ginseng , herbs , and other vegetables there .
He has pledged the largest parcel of about 10,000 pyeong ( a bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials value the gift at between 500 million and 700 million won , or between $ 400,000 and $ 570,000 .
There are technicalities that must be worked out .
Authorities are trying to make sure Mr. Kim will not face gift taxes , but he 's adamant : `` If I have to pay that , I would accept that . ''
Mr. Kim , a devout Christian who jokingly calls himself `` a lamb , '' has led a turbulent life .
His father died when he was 6 , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beat and abused him .
Mr. Kim ran away from his home and began working as a shoeshine boy when he was 10 .
Tormented by the separation from his family , Mr. Kim drank and smoked excessively .
Then came the TB .
When he survived , he found relief in his faith and in volunteer service .
For the past 25 years , he has fixed thousands of used or castoff shoes and donated them to poor people , and provided free haircuts to older people with dementia or other health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now work together and make about 2 million to 3 million won ( $ 1,635- $ 2,450 ) a month , considerably less than South Korea 's average household income of 4.8 million won .
They live in a small , two-room apartment with two of their three adult children , one of them a 26-year-old son with Down syndrome .
Mr. Kim said that `` what aches my heart the most '' is the reaction of some friends and neighbors to his plan .
`` They tell me things like , 'Hey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
... Take care of your children first , '' Mr. Kim said .
`` But I 've never had my kids go hungry and I 've been living happily .
...
I 'm satisfied with my life and ca n't just ignore the poor and needy . ''
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

Kim Byung-rok survived tuberculosis as a young man but in his work polishing and mending shoes the debris proved to be too much for his lungs.
So when he bought land on a small, quiet mountain in 2014, he wanted to heal, to do some farming – and to breathe fresh air.
But now Mr. Kim wants to donate a big chunk of his holdings to the local government. So many South Koreans are shutting their businesses and face declining incomes due to the coronavirus outbreak, which has hit the country hard; Mr. Kim thought the value of his land could be put to good use.
"I went through a rough childhood and I got help from others all the time. I've always thought I should one day become a person who helps others," Mr. Kim said at his Seoul shop, the thick grime under his nails testimony to how he spends his days.
"Wouldn't it be good if I give the people strength and courage?" he said.
It has had that effect. An online media story on his offer has garnered more than 2,100 comments. Some call him "an angel" or "a person who deserves a seat in heaven."
Mr. Kim's three plots of land are located in Paju, near the border with North Korea. He bought the land when its prices plummeted due to North Korean missile tests, before they rose again after inter-Korean relations improved in recent years. He's since planted ginseng, herbs, and other vegetables there.
He has pledged the largest parcel of about 10,000 pyeong (a bit more than 8 acres). Local officials value the gift at between 500 million and 700 million won, or between $400,000 and $570,000.
There are technicalities that must be worked out. Authorities are trying to make sure Mr. Kim will not face gift taxes, but he's adamant: "If I have to pay that, I would accept that."
Mr. Kim, a devout Christian who jokingly calls himself "a lamb," has led a turbulent life.
His father died when he was 6, and his mother later married a man who beat and abused him. Mr. Kim ran away from his home and began working as a shoeshine boy when he was 10.
Tormented by the separation from his family, Mr. Kim drank and smoked excessively. Then came the TB. When he survived, he found relief in his faith and in volunteer service.
For the past 25 years, he has fixed thousands of used or castoff shoes and donated them to poor people, and provided free haircuts to older people with dementia or other health problems.
Mr. Kim and his wife now work together and make about 2 million to 3 million won ($1,635-$2,450) a month, considerably less than South Korea's average household income of 4.8 million won. They live in a small, two-room apartment with two of their three adult children, one of them a 26-year-old son with Down syndrome.
Mr. Kim said that "what aches my heart the most" is the reaction of some friends and neighbors to his plan.
"They tell me things like, 'Hey, what the heck are you doing. ... Take care of your children first," Mr. Kim said. "But I've never had my kids go hungry and I've been living happily. ... I'm satisfied with my life and can't just ignore the poor and needy."
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empower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-04-03--Listen: #StayHomeSounds emerge in silence of lockdowns

From an eerily quiet Times Square in New York to cheers for health care workers , a website is collecting sounds to document how coronavirus has transformed spaces around the globe .
Dozens of people from more than 25 countries have shared audio recordings from their daily lives during the pandemic for the # StayHomeSounds project by the sound mapping website Cities and Memory .
`` The way the world sounds has changed really dramatically in just a few weeks , '' said project founder Stuart Fowkes in a telephone interview from his home near Oxford in England .
`` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that and record it for posterity , but that we also get the stories as well – what people are thinking and feeling at the same time . ''
With many countries imposing lockdowns or other restrictions to combat the spread of the virus , cities have seen buzzing tourist centers suddenly empty and the sounds of nature emerge as traffic noise recedes .
The # StayHomeSounds project was set up a week ago and aims to document the epidemic through crowdsourced sound clips from around the globe , which are shared on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and some details of the story behind them .
All that can be heard in the entertainment hub of Times Square is the drone of building air conditioning units , while other clips include a woman in Finland recording a story for young relatives , and birdsong in Poland .
News outlets around the globe have shared how the pandemic has allowed nature to take over cities .
Earlier in March , The Guardian reported that in Venice , the hundreds of canals that were now free of motorboat taxis are filling with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the clarity of the water improves dramatically .
Sound has also been a way for people to connect despite their isolation , with recordings of people joining together to cheer for health care workers from the Spanish capital Madrid through to Lima in Peru .
Mr. Fowkes said he hoped the recordings would help evoke life during the epidemic for the future , and that the project would also help people take a virtual trip around the world even if they remain stuck at home .
The U.K.-based sound artist told FastCompany that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world sounds like : “ This is obviously a unique moment in our lifetimes , and that ’ s being reflected in sound too – our towns and cities have never sounded like they do under the global lockdown , ” Mr. Fowkes said in a statement .
“ You can hear it in everything from simple things like less traffic , or how we can now hear more birdsong and wildlife , through to how people all over the world are coming together through song and music.
” Visitors to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ map to hear sounds recorded there and see a brief description .
If they wish , they can also submit recordings from where they ’ re sheltering from the virus , using their phones and a form posted to the site .
( Mr. Fowkes urges participants not to leave their homes or other safe places just to capture sound ) .
Other collections of audio in the City and Memories project include the sounds of protests around the world , recordings of nature , the distinctive sounds of the London Underground , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cultures .
`` While you are on lockdown , you can at least do a bit of sonic tourism , '' Mr. Fowkes told the Thomson Reuters Foundation .
`` [ You can ] see what other people are hearing around the world and also read their stories and see that actually people are feeling similarly ... hopefully that helps to make us feel a little bit more connected . ''
This story was reported by the Thomson Reuters Foundation .
Material from FastCompany and The Guardian was used in this report .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

From an eerily quiet Times Square in New York to cheers for health care workers, a website is collecting sounds to document how coronavirus has transformed spaces around the globe.
Dozens of people from more than 25 countries have shared audio recordings from their daily lives during the pandemic for the #StayHomeSounds project by the sound mapping website Cities and Memory.
"The way the world sounds has changed really dramatically in just a few weeks," said project founder Stuart Fowkes in a telephone interview from his home near Oxford in England.
"It's really important that we recognize that and record it for posterity, but that we also get the stories as well – what people are thinking and feeling at the same time."
With many countries imposing lockdowns or other restrictions to combat the spread of the virus, cities have seen buzzing tourist centers suddenly empty and the sounds of nature emerge as traffic noise recedes.
The #StayHomeSounds project was set up a week ago and aims to document the epidemic through crowdsourced sound clips from around the globe, which are shared on a map showing where they were recorded and some details of the story behind them.
All that can be heard in the entertainment hub of Times Square is the drone of building air conditioning units, while other clips include a woman in Finland recording a story for young relatives, and birdsong in Poland.
News outlets around the globe have shared how the pandemic has allowed nature to take over cities. Earlier in March, The Guardian reported that in Venice, the hundreds of canals that were now free of motorboat taxis are filling with crabs, fish, and plant-life as the clarity of the water improves dramatically.
Sound has also been a way for people to connect despite their isolation, with recordings of people joining together to cheer for health care workers from the Spanish capital Madrid through to Lima in Peru.
Mr. Fowkes said he hoped the recordings would help evoke life during the epidemic for the future, and that the project would also help people take a virtual trip around the world even if they remain stuck at home.
The U.K.-based sound artist told FastCompany that he hopes his project will capture what the world sounds like:
“This is obviously a unique moment in our lifetimes, and that’s being reflected in sound too – our towns and cities have never sounded like they do under the global lockdown,” Mr. Fowkes said in a statement. “You can hear it in everything from simple things like less traffic, or how we can now hear more birdsong and wildlife, through to how people all over the world are coming together through song and music.” Visitors to the site can click a point on the map to hear sounds recorded there and see a brief description. If they wish, they can also submit recordings from where they’re sheltering from the virus, using their phones and a form posted to the site. (Mr. Fowkes urges participants not to leave their homes or other safe places just to capture sound). Other collections of audio in the City and Memories project include the sounds of protests around the world, recordings of nature, the distinctive sounds of the London Underground, and religious sounds from an assortment of cultures.
"While you are on lockdown, you can at least do a bit of sonic tourism," Mr. Fowkes told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"[You can] see what other people are hearing around the world and also read their stories and see that actually people are feeling similarly ... hopefully that helps to make us feel a little bit more connected."
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This story was reported by the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Material from FastCompany and The Guardian was used in this report.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-03-30--It's official: Tokyo Olympics rescheduled for July 2021

The Tokyo Olympics will open next year in the same time slot scheduled for this year 's games .
Tokyo organizers said on Monday the opening ceremony will take place on July 23 , 2021 – almost exactly one year after the games were due to start this year .
`` The schedule for the games is key to preparing for the games , '' Tokyo organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori said .
`` This will only accelerate our progress . ''
Last week , the IOC and Japanese organizers postponed the Olympics until 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to open on July 24 and close on Aug. 9 .
But the near exact one-year delay will see the rescheduled closing ceremony on Aug. 8 .
There had been talk of switching the Olympics to spring , a move that would coincide with the blooming of Japan 's famous cherry blossoms .
But it would also clash with European soccer and North American sports leagues .
Mr. Mori said a spring Olympics was considered but holding the games later gives more space to complete the many qualifying events that have been postponed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wanted to have more room for the athletes to qualify , '' Mr. Mori said .
After holding out for weeks , local organizers and the IOC last week postponed the Tokyo Games under pressure from athletes , national Olympic bodies , and sports federations .
It 's the first postponement in Olympic history , though there were several cancellations during wartime .
The Paralympics were rescheduled to Aug. 24-Sept. 5 .
The new Olympic dates would conflict with the scheduled world championships in track and swimming , but those events are now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ `` The IOC has had close discussions with the relevant international federations , '' organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto said .
`` I believe the IFs have accepted the games being held in the summer . ''
Mr. Muto said the decision was made on Monday and the IOC said it was supported by all the international sports federations and was based on three main considerations : to protect the health of athletes , to safeguard the interests of the athletes and Olympic sport , and the international sports calendar .
`` These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all involved in the organization of the Games the maximum time to deal with the constantly changing landscape and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic , '' the IOC said .
`` The new dates ... also have the added benefit that any disruption that the postponement will cause to the international sports calendar can be kept to a minimum , in the interests of the athletes and the IFs . ''
Both Mr. Mori and Mr. Muto have said the cost of rescheduling the Olympics will be `` massive '' – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with most of the expenses borne by Japanese taxpayers .
Mr. Muto promised transparency in calculating the costs , and testing times deciding how they are divided up .
`` Since it [ the Olympics ] were scheduled for this summer , all the venues had given up hosting any other events during this time , so how do we approach that ? ''
Mr. Muto asked .
`` In addition , there will need to be guarantees when we book the new dates , and there is a possibility this will incur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ costs incurred and we will need to consider them one by one .
I think that will be the tougher process . ''
Katsuhiro Miyamoto , an emeritus professor of sports economics at Kansai University , puts the costs as high as $ 4 billion .
That would cover the price of maintaining stadiums , refitting them , paying rentals , penalties , and other expenses .
Japan is officially spending $ 12.6 billion to organize the Olympics .
However , an audit bureau of the Japanese government says the costs are twice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is public money except $ 5.6 billion from a privately funded operating budget .
The Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee is contributing $ 1.3 billion , according to organizing committee documents .
The IOC 's contribution goes into the operating budget .
IOC President Thomas Bach has repeatedly called the Tokyo Olympics the best prepared in history .
However , Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso also termed them `` cursed . ''
Mr. Aso competed in shooting in the 1976 Olympics , and was born in 1940 .
The Olympics planned for 1940 in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war with China .
The run-up to the Olympics also saw IOC member Tsunekazu Takeda , who also headed the Japanese Olympic Committee , forced to resign last year amid a bribery scandal .
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

The Tokyo Olympics will open next year in the same time slot scheduled for this year's games.
Tokyo organizers said on Monday the opening ceremony will take place on July 23, 2021 – almost exactly one year after the games were due to start this year.
"The schedule for the games is key to preparing for the games," Tokyo organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori said. "This will only accelerate our progress."
Last week, the IOC and Japanese organizers postponed the Olympics until 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
This year's games were scheduled to open on July 24 and close on Aug. 9. But the near exact one-year delay will see the rescheduled closing ceremony on Aug. 8.
There had been talk of switching the Olympics to spring, a move that would coincide with the blooming of Japan's famous cherry blossoms. But it would also clash with European soccer and North American sports leagues.
Mr. Mori said a spring Olympics was considered but holding the games later gives more space to complete the many qualifying events that have been postponed by the virus outbreak.
"We wanted to have more room for the athletes to qualify," Mr. Mori said.
After holding out for weeks, local organizers and the IOC last week postponed the Tokyo Games under pressure from athletes, national Olympic bodies, and sports federations. It's the first postponement in Olympic history, though there were several cancellations during wartime.
The Paralympics were rescheduled to Aug. 24-Sept. 5.
The new Olympic dates would conflict with the scheduled world championships in track and swimming, but those events are now expected to also be pushed back.
"The IOC has had close discussions with the relevant international federations," organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto said. "I believe the IFs have accepted the games being held in the summer."
Mr. Muto said the decision was made on Monday and the IOC said it was supported by all the international sports federations and was based on three main considerations: to protect the health of athletes, to safeguard the interests of the athletes and Olympic sport, and the international sports calendar.
"These new dates give the health authorities and all involved in the organization of the Games the maximum time to deal with the constantly changing landscape and the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic," the IOC said. "The new dates ... also have the added benefit that any disruption that the postponement will cause to the international sports calendar can be kept to a minimum, in the interests of the athletes and the IFs."
Both Mr. Mori and Mr. Muto have said the cost of rescheduling the Olympics will be "massive" – local reports estimate billions of dollars – with most of the expenses borne by Japanese taxpayers.
Mr. Muto promised transparency in calculating the costs, and testing times deciding how they are divided up.
"Since it [the Olympics] were scheduled for this summer, all the venues had given up hosting any other events during this time, so how do we approach that?" Mr. Muto asked. "In addition, there will need to be guarantees when we book the new dates, and there is a possibility this will incur rent payments. So there will be costs incurred and we will need to consider them one by one. I think that will be the tougher process."
Katsuhiro Miyamoto, an emeritus professor of sports economics at Kansai University, puts the costs as high as $4 billion. That would cover the price of maintaining stadiums, refitting them, paying rentals, penalties, and other expenses.
Japan is officially spending $12.6 billion to organize the Olympics. However, an audit bureau of the Japanese government says the costs are twice that much. All of the spending is public money except $5.6 billion from a privately funded operating budget.
The Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee is contributing $1.3 billion, according to organizing committee documents. The IOC's contribution goes into the operating budget.
IOC President Thomas Bach has repeatedly called the Tokyo Olympics the best prepared in history. However, Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso also termed them "cursed." Mr. Aso competed in shooting in the 1976 Olympics, and was born in 1940.
The Olympics planned for 1940 in Tokyo were canceled because of Japan's war with China.
The run-up to the Olympics also saw IOC member Tsunekazu Takeda, who also headed the Japanese Olympic Committee, forced to resign last year amid a bribery scandal.
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This story was reported by The Associated Press.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-05-14--An overlooked answer to COVID-19

An overlooked answer to COVID-19

Of all the responses to the coronavirus , one of the most overlooked by journalists and national leaders has been prayer .
Yet take note : On May 14 , tens of thousands of Christians , Muslims , and Jews around the world held a day of prayer for healing .
It was sponsored by a newly formed interfaith group called the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity .
“ Let us face this challenge with patience and composure , ” said Indonesian President Joko Widodo at a mass prayer service in his Asian nation on Thursday .
“ Panic is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half of a cure , and patience determines recovery.
” Or note a day of prayer held in Israel April 22 .
Jewish , Christian , Muslim , and Druze religious leaders gathered online to lead people in their respective prayers .
Or note a day of interfaith prayer in the Philippines April 8 to address the virus crisis .
In the United States , the National Day of Prayer , held every year on the first Thursday in May , focused this year on helping Americans cope with COVID-19 .
At the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ held days of prayer – on Facebook , Zoom , or similar online platforms .
During the COVID-19 emergency , “ Americans have become significantly more likely to say that religion is increasing its influence on American life , ” according to the results of a mid-April Gallup Poll .
A March survey by Pew Research Center found 24 % of Americans say their faith has become stronger while 55 % said they had prayed for an end to the spread of the coronavirus .
In March , the number of Google searches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ God ” skyrocketed in 75 countries , according to economist Jeanet Bentzen at the University of Copenhagen .
In addition , downloads of Christian apps for prayer and meditation have increased in the U.S. Adversity often pushes people to search for answers through prayer .
The individual problems may differ in type and scope , but the universal truths found through prayer can provide peace and calm to all .
Those truths are eternal and accessible .
For many during this pandemic , this is not a surprise .
Perhaps they should @ @ @ @

Of all the responses to the coronavirus, one of the most overlooked by journalists and national leaders has been prayer. Yet take note: On May 14, tens of thousands of Christians, Muslims, and Jews around the world held a day of prayer for healing. It was sponsored by a newly formed interfaith group called the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity.
“Let us face this challenge with patience and composure,” said Indonesian President Joko Widodo at a mass prayer service in his Asian nation on Thursday. “Panic is half of the disease, equanimity is half of a cure, and patience determines recovery.”
Or note a day of prayer held in Israel April 22. Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Druze religious leaders gathered online to lead people in their respective prayers. Or note a day of interfaith prayer in the Philippines April 8 to address the virus crisis.
In the United States, the National Day of Prayer, held every year on the first Thursday in May, focused this year on helping Americans cope with COVID-19. At the local level, interfaith groups have also held days of prayer – on Facebook, Zoom, or similar online platforms.
During the COVID-19 emergency, “Americans have become significantly more likely to say that religion is increasing its influence on American life,” according to the results of a mid-April Gallup Poll. A March survey by Pew Research Center found 24% of Americans say their faith has become stronger while 55% said they had prayed for an end to the spread of the coronavirus.
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In March, the number of Google searches for words like “prayer” and “God” skyrocketed in 75 countries, according to economist Jeanet Bentzen at the University of Copenhagen. In addition, downloads of Christian apps for prayer and meditation have increased in the U.S.
Adversity often pushes people to search for answers through prayer. The individual problems may differ in type and scope, but the universal truths found through prayer can provide peace and calm to all. Those truths are eternal and accessible. For many during this pandemic, this is not a surprise. Perhaps they should not be overlooked.


csmonitor--2020-05-22--A knight in shining kindness

A knight in shining kindness

Be flexible .
Be bold .
Be quicker than you think you can be .
In the COVID-19 era , this is the advice now commonly given to charities and philanthropists .
The crisis demands generosity on a mass scale and in creative ways .
And then there ’ s Capt .
Tom Moore , the example of all that .
Or as of May 20 , Sir Tom Moore .
The 100-year-old war veteran in Britain has become a global hero for his inspiring spirit of giving , so much so that Queen Elizabeth knighted him Wednesday for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Sir Tom set out to walk 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday with the goal of raising $ 1,250 for health workers in Britain .
He was boldly challenging himself to be as flexible at home with a walker as he was challenging others to be flexible and bold in their donations .
He not only completed the laps ahead of time , but also caught the world ’ s imagination .
He ended up raising more than $ 43 million and counting .
Prime Minister Boris Johnson called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fog of coronavirus.
” Sir Tom tapped into a rich vein of humanity during a time of great need .
“ This started as something small and I ’ ve been overwhelmed by the gratitude and love from the British public and beyond , ” he said .
“ Everybody has some kindness somewhere.
” Around the world , giving of all kinds has shifted into a different gear to respond to the health and economic crisis .
Many governments have set up special foundations to funnel private donations into causes that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Billions of dollars are being raised to find a vaccine for the coronavirus .
Food banks around the world report unprecedented demand – and unprecedented giving .
The United Nations estimates that a quarter of a billion people will require urgent food aid by the end of 2020 .
Billions already need help of some sort as a result of the pandemic and the economic fallout .
Those responding to the need must be flexible , bold , and quick .
After Sir Tom thanked the queen for being knighted and the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Twitter : “ I will remain at your service.
” Indeed , his example ca n't help but inspire all of us to greater service .

Be flexible. Be bold. Be quicker than you think you can be.
In the COVID-19 era, this is the advice now commonly given to charities and philanthropists. The crisis demands generosity on a mass scale and in creative ways.
And then there’s Capt. Tom Moore, the example of all that.
Or as of May 20, Sir Tom Moore.
The 100-year-old war veteran in Britain has become a global hero for his inspiring spirit of giving, so much so that Queen Elizabeth knighted him Wednesday for his exceptional initiative in fundraising.
In April, Sir Tom set out to walk 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday with the goal of raising $1,250 for health workers in Britain. He was boldly challenging himself to be as flexible at home with a walker as he was challenging others to be flexible and bold in their donations.
He not only completed the laps ahead of time, but also caught the world’s imagination. He ended up raising more than $43 million and counting. Prime Minister Boris Johnson called him “a beacon of light through the fog of coronavirus.”
Sir Tom tapped into a rich vein of humanity during a time of great need. “This started as something small and I’ve been overwhelmed by the gratitude and love from the British public and beyond,” he said. “Everybody has some kindness somewhere.”
Around the world, giving of all kinds has shifted into a different gear to respond to the health and economic crisis. Many governments have set up special foundations to funnel private donations into causes that fill the gap in safety nets. Billions of dollars are being raised to find a vaccine for the coronavirus. Food banks around the world report unprecedented demand – and unprecedented giving.
The United Nations estimates that a quarter of a billion people will require urgent food aid by the end of 2020. Billions already need help of some sort as a result of the pandemic and the economic fallout. Those responding to the need must be flexible, bold, and quick.
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empower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
After Sir Tom thanked the queen for being knighted and the public for its generosity, he wrote on Twitter: “I will remain at your service.”
Indeed, his example can't help but inspire all of us to greater service.


csmonitor--2020-06-03--Daily for June 3, 2020

Daily for June 3, 2020

When Xavier Jennings was a teenager , money was tight for his single mother , who had five children , and he felt a duty to help out .
He applied for jobs at Walmart and McDonald ’ s , but struggled to be what he calls in hindsight “ interview ready.
” He started stealing food from a supermarket , and escalated to selling marijuana on the street .
Still , he liked his high school classes and wanted to graduate , even as evictions and spates of homelessness for his family meant switching schools six times in four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fell short of credits .
“ My idea of success was attached to finishing my education.
” He felt , he says , like a failure .
Mr. Jennings drifted further toward drug sales , but his older brother pulled him back when he saw him hanging out with the wrong crowd .
“ He told people he knew [ in gangs ] to stay away from me , ” Mr. Jennings says .
“ I owe a lot to him – he really saw goodness in me.
” To redirect him , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ High Youth Corps in Denver , a branch of YouthBuild , a national nonprofit that helps volunteers earn their GED diplomas and pays them minimum wage to work in construction and conservation .
As early as the first day on the job , he started to feel differently about himself , he says .
“ It was planting the seeds of ‘ I can make a difference.
’ ” Today Mr. Jennings has a full-time job as a YouthBuild program coordinator , mentoring young adults while coaching Little League and finishing up his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more Americans like Mr. Jennings to serve their country lies at the center of a highly anticipated “ grand strategy ” put forward in March by the National Commission on Military , National , and Public Service .
Created by Congress , the commission argues that national service – funded by the federal government – is central to improving Americans ’ quality of life , bolstering national security , and strengthening democracy .
While the commission made headlines this spring for recommending that women be required to register for the draft alongside men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elevate the status of national service – giving it the same prestige that military recruits enjoy .
To figure out how to do that , the commissioners took a yearlong Alexis de Tocqueville-like journey across the United States , gathering stories such as Mr. Jennings ’ in hundreds of hours of testimony .
Their conclusions came with a warning : Despite high demand , service opportunities for young people through AmeriCorps , the Peace Corps , and other programs such as YouthBuild have long remained static and require a new level of investment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ federal funding to boost the number of young people working in national service jobs from 80,000 today to 1 million by 2031 .
It comes with hurdles , but advocates believe the coronavirus pandemic has only underscored the importance of such mission-oriented work .
“ We ’ ve been prepared as a country for a terrorist attack or an overseas war , but clearly we haven ’ t been prepared – culturally or institutionally – for something like this , ” says Emma Moore , analyst for the military , veterans , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New American Security , a Washington think tank .
“ It highlights in my mind the greater need for national service.
” Adds retired Navy Capt .
Steven Barney , a commissioner and a former general counsel for the Senate Armed Services Committee : “ This is the answer to how we mobilize for something like a pandemic.
” Back in 1906 , the philosopher William James , brother of Henry , called for America to create a “ moral equivalent of war ” through programs of national service that would rally the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of purpose .
He admitted that it ’ s hard to beat battlefields for this .
“ Militarism is the great preserver of our ideals of hardihood , ” he wrote in a widely celebrated essay .
Those less martially inclined need to acknowledge the appeal of self-sacrifice and camaraderie forged in combat , he advised , and come up with something able to compete with the “ dread hammer ” of militarism as the “ welder of men into cohesive states.
” The solution , he said , is mandatory national service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , to freight trains , to fishing fleets in December , to dishwashing , clothes-washing , and window-washing , to road-building and tunnel-making , to foundries and stoke-holes , and to the frames of skyscrapers , would our gilded youths be drafted off , according to their choice , to get the childishness knocked out of them , and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas , ” he wrote .
He also observed , “ The martial type of character can be bred without war.
” The idea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ – and ultimately rejected – as a possibility throughout American history .
Just a couple of decades before James ’ treatise , in 1888 , Edward Bellamy published the wildly popular “ Looking Backward , ” a Utopian novel that was only outsold in its day by “ Uncle Tom ’ s Cabin ” and “ Ben-Hur : A Tale of the Christ.
” Written in the wake of the depression of 1873-79 and a series of recessions in the 1880s , the book called for mandatory service for men and women ages @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Bellamy clubs ” sprang up nationwide .
The Russian translation of the book was banned by czarist censors for its socialist leanings .
In later decades , philosophers , policy analysts , and politicians offered their own proposals for a “ moral equivalent of war.
” The New Deal yielded the Civilian Conservation Corps , which mobilized , with the leadership of a young George Marshall , 3 million unemployed Americans who planted some 3 billion trees and constructed 97,000 miles of fire roads , among other projects , between 1933 and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Brookings Institution .
Following the success of the Peace Corps , Defense Secretary Robert McNamara pushed to tie civilian service to the draft in the early 1960s .
Anthropologist Margaret Mead advocated a service program that “ would replace for girls , even more than for boys , marriage as the route away from the parental home , ” according to a 2019 report from the libertarian Cato Institute .
When he was governor of Arkansas and a member of the Democratic Leadership Council , Bill Clinton called for a national Citizen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his presidency , his administration ultimately created the more modestly sized Corporation for National and Community Service and AmeriCorps .
Most recently , retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal , former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan , extolled the virtues of universal – though not mandatory – national service .
He imagined an America in which “ one full quarter of an age cohort , serving together to solve problems , will build attachment to community and country , understanding among people who might otherwise be skeptical of one another and a new generation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I saw these effects for 34 years in the U.S. Army , ” he wrote .
“ We need them in civilian life.
” The national commission on military and public service , too , set out to answer the question of whether national service should be mandatory for young adults , and ultimately declined to recommend taking this step .
Few leaders are fond of working with conscripts who might turn out to be surly , particularly when kicking them out is tough to do .
“ Policymakers should make every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , reserving mandatory service as a last resort only in response to national emergencies and to ensure common defense , ” the commission concluded .
Yet a growing number of countries have been adopting mandatory national service for young people .
France last year launched a program championed by President Emmanuel Macron that will ultimately train some 800,000 teenagers a year .
The aim is to strengthen social cohesion in a country that abolished mandatory military service more than 20 years ago , in 1997 , and give young people “ causes to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social , environmental , and cultural domains , ” Mr. Macron said .
For one month , 16-year-olds will live communally and give up their cellphones to learn first aid , map reading , and emergency response .
After dinner each evening , they ’ ll be encouraged to debate social issues , such as gender discrimination and the roots of radicalization .
Then they ’ ll have the chance to use their skills in volunteer jobs .
The program will soon be written into the constitution and become mandatory over the next @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cost $ 1.8 billion a year to run .
After abolishing a year of compulsory military service for men in 2011 , Germany is now mulling the idea of bringing back a year of mandatory national service as well , in part to address chronic staff shortages in nursing homes and hospices .
It would also be required for all adult asylum-seekers , as a way to better integrate migrants , say officials who point to an increasingly polarized society .
In the U.S. , demand for government-sponsored volunteer jobs consistently outpaces the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , there were more than 150,000 requests for applications to the Peace Corps , for example , but only 7,000 positions available , notes the Brookings Institution report .
That trend has continued , with the Peace Corps estimating that , on average , there are three to five times as many applications as slots available .
These trends have been mirrored in AmeriCorps applications over the past decade , with three to five applicants for every one open position .
The programs seem to have a good effect on those who do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than 80 % of the program ’ s national service alumni credit their experience with making them more likely to attain a college degree , vote , volunteer , care about community issues , and fashion practical solutions to problems , the Brookings report says .
Yet expanding such programs is expensive .
Convincing Congress to fund them , particularly given the cost of stimulus programs in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic , will likely prove difficult .
While the call to “ serve your country ” still means joining the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , some 70 % of 18- to 24-year-olds don ’ t meet eligibility standards .
Sharell Harmon , for her part , longed to enlist in the Air Force .
But when she didn ’ t qualify , she applied to YouthBuild in Elkins , West Virginia , instead .
The orientation was heavy on trust-building exercises .
A black woman in a predominantly white rural area , she wasn ’ t surprised that her teammates were mostly “ guys who wear hunting gear on the back roads , living their best life.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ was that they ’ d become her “ brothers ” – the sort of battle buddies she ’ d once hoped to find in the armed forces .
“ They ’ re in my everyday , ” she says .
“ We check in .
They ’ re having kids now – we ’ re family .
I didn ’ t qualify for the military , but it ’ s important to keep that structure , that support for folks , that possibility of service.
” The commissioners agreed , concluding that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ demilitarized , ” but also better linked to government .
Their recommendations include , among other things , creating a position on the National Security Council to coordinate military and civilian service , and adding slots in U.S. military academies for those interested in civilian government work .
Studying and training together , the commission notes , could improve “ whole of government ” approaches to crises like the current coronavirus .
These steps could also spur the creation of a national database of volunteers that can be cross-referenced with the skills @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather than just calling for them on Twitter , ” Ms. Moore adds .
Prior to his time on Capitol Hill , serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee and as a staffer for the late Sen. John McCain , Mr. Barney was a Navy lawyer for 22 years .
Though he was aware of national service , he still didn ’ t fully understand what it was , he says .
To help remedy this , he and his fellow commissioners traveled to 22 states to ask : Why do or don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are the obstacles to serving ?
In many cases , the answer to that last query , they discovered , was financial .
While military service comes with a salary as well as free health care and college tuition , government-backed volunteer programs such as AmeriCorps are less financially liberal .
Designed to be intentionally modest , living allowances are often so low that “ members can not sustain themselves without outside assistance , ” the commission ’ s report notes .
When Mr. Barney spoke at a kickoff event last spring for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to learn that the group ’ s initial training included a tutorial on how to register for food stamps .
Many volunteers who skipped this step acknowledged that the only reason they could participate in the program is that they had family willing to support them .
In 2018 , the average budgeted living allowance for full-time AmeriCorps volunteers was $ 15,370 .
If volunteers can manage to make ends meet , however , they often come away with valuable skills .
Before Maya Gonzalez discovered Mile High Youth Corps in Denver , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in construction to support her wife and stepchildren .
But there were opportunities in energy conservation , program coordinators told her .
“ I didn ’ t know or care much about energy efficiency , ” she says .
“ But they said , ‘ You should look into it.
’ ” She did , and through the program became an expert in LED lightbulbs and water-efficient toilets .
“ I didn ’ t know toilets mattered , ” but by replacing an old model using upward of 1.6 gallons per flush with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , “ You can only imagine how much that saved on water bills , ” she says .
What Ms. Gonzalez particularly loved was working with low-income residents .
“ I ’ m this Hispanic girl with tattoos – I grew up in the projects – and right away they get the sense I come from a certain background , ” she says .
“ One client told me , ‘ I love that it ’ s you walking in .
You feel my pain.
’ And , OK , that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m glad they know they ’ re not getting judged .
All of a sudden they ’ re making you breakfast while you change a lightbulb.
” Keeping volunteers in their own communities is ideal , says Mr. Barney , who , along with fellow commissioners , recommends creating federally funded fellowships .
Under these , people interested in national service would be given a card they could take to any organization and say , “ I ’ m here to help you , and this gives you everything you need to bring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ locals pinpoint sources of need in their neighborhoods .
Better civics education is key , too , the report stresses , since it teaches students how Americans have worked in the past for positive , fundamental change – and overcome efforts to thwart it .
As the commissioners traveled the country , “ nearly every conversation included a passionate call to improve civic education , ” the report points out , noting that the federal government spends more than $ 3.2 billion for science , technology , engineering , and math programs , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civics .
A handful of states has revamped these courses in ways that could serve as a model for the country .
Illinois now requires classroom discussions of “ current and controversial events , ” and also encourages some volunteering .
Florida law mandates that all middle schoolers get one semester of civics , and Massachusetts calls for its high schoolers to take part in at least one “ nonpartisan ” civics project .
“ You need to have service learning opportunities , starting in kindergarten , ” Mr. Barney says .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a person graduates , someone will ask , ‘ What is your plan to serve ?
’ and they ’ ll have a ready answer.
” As a mentor , Mr. Jennings helps his students think through such questions .
Hearing their stories helps him point them toward a path that ’ s right for them .
He still aches , though , for the friends and family who didn ’ t qualify , or weren ’ t chosen , for programs that have altered the course of his life .
“ My @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of folks face adversity at a young age .
Opportunity , ” he adds , “ is the fork in the road .
”

Love of country: US ready for mandatory national service? Collapse
When Xavier Jennings was a teenager, money was tight for his single mother, who had five children, and he felt a duty to help out. He applied for jobs at Walmart and McDonald’s, but struggled to be what he calls in hindsight “interview ready.” He started stealing food from a supermarket, and escalated to selling marijuana on the street.
Still, he liked his high school classes and wanted to graduate, even as evictions and spates of homelessness for his family meant switching schools six times in four years. He was devastated when he fell short of credits. “My idea of success was attached to finishing my education.” He felt, he says, like a failure.
Mr. Jennings drifted further toward drug sales, but his older brother pulled him back when he saw him hanging out with the wrong crowd. “He told people he knew [in gangs] to stay away from me,” Mr. Jennings says. “I owe a lot to him – he really saw goodness in me.”
To redirect him, his brother eventually took him to Mile High Youth Corps in Denver, a branch of YouthBuild, a national nonprofit that helps volunteers earn their GED diplomas and pays them minimum wage to work in construction and conservation. As early as the first day on the job, he started to feel differently about himself, he says. “It was planting the seeds of ‘I can make a difference.’”
Today Mr. Jennings has a full-time job as a YouthBuild program coordinator, mentoring young adults while coaching Little League and finishing up his college degree in nonprofit management.
Getting more Americans like Mr. Jennings to serve their country lies at the center of a highly anticipated “grand strategy” put forward in March by the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. Created by Congress, the commission argues that national service – funded by the federal government – is central to improving Americans’ quality of life, bolstering national security, and strengthening democracy.
While the commission made headlines this spring for recommending that women be required to register for the draft alongside men, it also stressed the need to elevate the status of national service – giving it the same prestige that military recruits enjoy.
To figure out how to do that, the commissioners took a yearlong Alexis de Tocqueville-like journey across the United States, gathering stories such as Mr. Jennings’ in hundreds of hours of testimony. Their conclusions came with a warning: Despite high demand, service opportunities for young people through AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, and other programs such as YouthBuild have long remained static and require a new level of investment. The report recommends that lawmakers increase federal funding to boost the number of young people working in national service jobs from 80,000 today to 1 million by 2031.
Alfredo Sosa/Staff/File View caption Hide caption Members of City Year AmeriCorps greet students as they enter Gilbert Stuart Middle School in Providence, Rhode Island. Mentors embedded in the school work to boost class attendance.
It comes with hurdles, but advocates believe the coronavirus pandemic has only underscored the importance of such mission-oriented work.
“We’ve been prepared as a country for a terrorist attack or an overseas war, but clearly we haven’t been prepared – culturally or institutionally – for something like this,” says Emma Moore, analyst for the military, veterans, and society program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. “It highlights in my mind the greater need for national service.”
Adds retired Navy Capt. Steven Barney, a commissioner and a former general counsel for the Senate Armed Services Committee: “This is the answer to how we mobilize for something like a pandemic.”
“Healthier sympathies”
Back in 1906, the philosopher William James, brother of Henry, called for America to create a “moral equivalent of war” through programs of national service that would rally the country to greatness and a shared sense of purpose.
He admitted that it’s hard to beat battlefields for this. “Militarism is the great preserver of our ideals of hardihood,” he wrote in a widely celebrated essay. Those less martially inclined need to acknowledge the appeal of self-sacrifice and camaraderie forged in combat, he advised, and come up with something able to compete with the “dread hammer” of militarism as the “welder of men into cohesive states.”
The solution, he said, is mandatory national service. “To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dishwashing, clothes-washing, and window-washing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas,” he wrote. He also observed, “The martial type of character can be bred without war.”
The idea of mandatory national service has been raised – and ultimately rejected – as a possibility throughout American history. Just a couple of decades before James’ treatise, in 1888, Edward Bellamy published the wildly popular “Looking Backward,” a Utopian novel that was only outsold in its day by “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.” Written in the wake of the depression of 1873-79 and a series of recessions in the 1880s, the book called for mandatory service for men and women ages 21 to 45. Some 165 subsequent “Bellamy clubs” sprang up nationwide. The Russian translation of the book was banned by czarist censors for its socialist leanings.
In later decades, philosophers, policy analysts, and politicians offered their own proposals for a “moral equivalent of war.” The New Deal yielded the Civilian Conservation Corps, which mobilized, with the leadership of a young George Marshall, 3 million unemployed Americans who planted some 3 billion trees and constructed 97,000 miles of fire roads, among other projects, between 1933 and 1942, notes a November report by the Brookings Institution.
Courtesy of Sharell Harmon View caption Hide caption “They’re in my everyday. We check in. They’re having kids now – we’re family. I didn’t qualify for the military, but it’s important to keep that structure, that support for folks, that possibility of service.” – Sharell Harmon, who made close friends while participating in a YouthBuild program in West Virginia
Following the success of the Peace Corps, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara pushed to tie civilian service to the draft in the early 1960s. Anthropologist Margaret Mead advocated a service program that “would replace for girls, even more than for boys, marriage as the route away from the parental home,” according to a 2019 report from the libertarian Cato Institute. When he was governor of Arkansas and a member of the Democratic Leadership Council, Bill Clinton called for a national Citizen Corps of 800,000 young people. During his presidency, his administration ultimately created the more modestly sized Corporation for National and Community Service and AmeriCorps.
Most recently, retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, extolled the virtues of universal – though not mandatory – national service. He imagined an America in which “one full quarter of an age cohort, serving together to solve problems, will build attachment to community and country, understanding among people who might otherwise be skeptical of one another and a new generation of leaders who can get things done. I saw these effects for 34 years in the U.S. Army,” he wrote. “We need them in civilian life.”
Social cohesion
The national commission on military and public service, too, set out to answer the question of whether national service should be mandatory for young adults, and ultimately declined to recommend taking this step. Few leaders are fond of working with conscripts who might turn out to be surly, particularly when kicking them out is tough to do.
“Policymakers should make every effort to promote voluntary approaches to service, reserving mandatory service as a last resort only in response to national emergencies and to ensure common defense,” the commission concluded.
Yet a growing number of countries have been adopting mandatory national service for young people. France last year launched a program championed by President Emmanuel Macron that will ultimately train some 800,000 teenagers a year. The aim is to strengthen social cohesion in a country that abolished mandatory military service more than 20 years ago, in 1997, and give young people “causes to defend and battles to fight in the social, environmental, and cultural domains,” Mr. Macron said.
For one month, 16-year-olds will live communally and give up their cellphones to learn first aid, map reading, and emergency response. After dinner each evening, they’ll be encouraged to debate social issues, such as gender discrimination and the roots of radicalization. Then they’ll have the chance to use their skills in volunteer jobs. The program will soon be written into the constitution and become mandatory over the next seven years. It is expected to cost $1.8 billion a year to run.
After abolishing a year of compulsory military service for men in 2011, Germany is now mulling the idea of bringing back a year of mandatory national service as well, in part to address chronic staff shortages in nursing homes and hospices. It would also be required for all adult asylum-seekers, as a way to better integrate migrants, say officials who point to an increasingly polarized society.
Corey Williams/AP/File View caption Hide caption Nicholas Thomas (left) and Joe Wright make school safety signs as part of an AmeriCorps project at Wayne State University in Detroit.
In the U.S., demand for government-sponsored volunteer jobs consistently outpaces the number of open slots. After 9/11, there were more than 150,000 requests for applications to the Peace Corps, for example, but only 7,000 positions available, notes the Brookings Institution report. That trend has continued, with the Peace Corps estimating that, on average, there are three to five times as many applications as slots available. These trends have been mirrored in AmeriCorps applications over the past decade, with three to five applicants for every one open position.
The programs seem to have a good effect on those who do get in. AmeriCorps surveys indicate that more than 80% of the program’s national service alumni credit their experience with making them more likely to attain a college degree, vote, volunteer, care about community issues, and fashion practical solutions to problems, the Brookings report says.
Yet expanding such programs is expensive. Convincing Congress to fund them, particularly given the cost of stimulus programs in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic, will likely prove difficult.
While the call to “serve your country” still means joining the military in the minds of many Americans, some 70% of 18- to 24-year-olds don’t meet eligibility standards. Sharell Harmon, for her part, longed to enlist in the Air Force. But when she didn’t qualify, she applied to YouthBuild in Elkins, West Virginia, instead.
The orientation was heavy on trust-building exercises. A black woman in a predominantly white rural area, she wasn’t surprised that her teammates were mostly “guys who wear hunting gear on the back roads, living their best life.” What she didn’t foresee was that they’d become her “brothers” – the sort of battle buddies she’d once hoped to find in the armed forces. “They’re in my everyday,” she says. “We check in. They’re having kids now – we’re family. I didn’t qualify for the military, but it’s important to keep that structure, that support for folks, that possibility of service.”
The commissioners agreed, concluding that the concept of service must not only be “demilitarized,” but also better linked to government. Their recommendations include, among other things, creating a position on the National Security Council to coordinate military and civilian service, and adding slots in U.S. military academies for those interested in civilian government work. Studying and training together, the commission notes, could improve “whole of government” approaches to crises like the current coronavirus.
These steps could also spur the creation of a national database of volunteers that can be cross-referenced with the skills they bring to any crisis, “rather than just calling for them on Twitter,” Ms. Moore adds.
Revamping civics education
Prior to his time on Capitol Hill, serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee and as a staffer for the late Sen. John McCain, Mr. Barney was a Navy lawyer for 22 years. Though he was aware of national service, he still didn’t fully understand what it was, he says. To help remedy this, he and his fellow commissioners traveled to 22 states to ask: Why do or don’t you serve, and what are the obstacles to serving?
In many cases, the answer to that last query, they discovered, was financial. While military service comes with a salary as well as free health care and college tuition, government-backed volunteer programs such as AmeriCorps are less financially liberal. Designed to be intentionally modest, living allowances are often so low that “members cannot sustain themselves without outside assistance,” the commission’s report notes.
Jessica Griffin/The Philadelphia Inquirer/AP/File View caption Hide caption Doug Getty (left) and Leon Hsi install flooring with Rebuilding Together Philadelphia, a nonprofit that uses volunteers to revitalize homes, in a house on the city’s west side.
When Mr. Barney spoke at a kickoff event last spring for AmeriCorps in Boston, he was surprised to learn that the group’s initial training included a tutorial on how to register for food stamps. Many volunteers who skipped this step acknowledged that the only reason they could participate in the program is that they had family willing to support them. In 2018, the average budgeted living allowance for full-time AmeriCorps volunteers was $15,370.
If volunteers can manage to make ends meet, however, they often come away with valuable skills. Before Maya Gonzalez discovered Mile High Youth Corps in Denver, she wasn’t earning enough working in construction to support her wife and stepchildren. But there were opportunities in energy conservation, program coordinators told her.
“I didn’t know or care much about energy efficiency,” she says. “But they said, ‘You should look into it.’” She did, and through the program became an expert in LED lightbulbs and water-efficient toilets. “I didn’t know toilets mattered,” but by replacing an old model using upward of 1.6 gallons per flush with a new one using half that amount, “You can only imagine how much that saved on water bills,” she says.
What Ms. Gonzalez particularly loved was working with low-income residents. “I’m this Hispanic girl with tattoos – I grew up in the projects – and right away they get the sense I come from a certain background,” she says. “One client told me, ‘I love that it’s you walking in. You feel my pain.’ And, OK, that’s kind of stereotypical, but I’m glad they know they’re not getting judged. All of a sudden they’re making you breakfast while you change a lightbulb.”
Keeping volunteers in their own communities is ideal, says Mr. Barney, who, along with fellow commissioners, recommends creating federally funded fellowships. Under these, people interested in national service would be given a card they could take to any organization and say, “I’m here to help you, and this gives you everything you need to bring me on board.” This might help locals pinpoint sources of need in their neighborhoods.
Better civics education is key, too, the report stresses, since it teaches students how Americans have worked in the past for positive, fundamental change – and overcome efforts to thwart it. As the commissioners traveled the country, “nearly every conversation included a passionate call to improve civic education,” the report points out, noting that the federal government spends more than $3.2 billion for science, technology, engineering, and math programs, versus about $5 million annually on civics.
A handful of states has revamped these courses in ways that could serve as a model for the country. Illinois now requires classroom discussions of “current and controversial events,” and also encourages some volunteering. Florida law mandates that all middle schoolers get one semester of civics, and Massachusetts calls for its high schoolers to take part in at least one “nonpartisan” civics project.
“You need to have service learning opportunities, starting in kindergarten,” Mr. Barney says. “Our vision is that by the time a person graduates, someone will ask, ‘What is your plan to serve?’ and they’ll have a ready answer.”
As a mentor, Mr. Jennings helps his students think through such questions. Hearing their stories helps him point them toward a path that’s right for them. He still aches, though, for the friends and family who didn’t qualify, or weren’t chosen, for programs that have altered the course of his life.
“My story isn’t unique – a lot of folks face adversity at a young age. Opportunity,” he adds, “is the fork in the road.”