Transcripts For CSPAN3 Current Former Public Officials Discuss National Service 20240713

Good morning, ladies and j gentlemen. Im john allenen, president of brookings. On behalf of the institution and our partners, i want to welcome you all to this important event today. I want to welcome those coming in over the webcast, and, of course, we always welcome the media. This morning, youll be hearing from a distinguished group of leaders and volunteers on the matter of National Service. Let me make a few brief comments to begin with. In such divided and turbulent times, we must look for ways to bridge society. To bridge the divides and to restore a sense of community. In recent years, much has been done, sadly, to burn rather than to build the bridges in our civic nation. Leading to a growing culture of fear and distrust, incivility and a reflex to retreat into the safety of tribalism. Our trust in institutions and our trust in each other has taken a beating and has, in fact, declined, and that decline makes it harder for us to solve some of the key problems we face as a country and as a people. From my personal experience, i know that when individuals from different walks of life have an opportunity to serve together and to serve their country and to do something bigger than themselves, they almost always live up to the challenge. In fact, they almost always perform magnificently. Emerging from the experience better young women and men. And in the process, they learn a crucial lesson. That when you serve side by side with another person, it really doesnt matter who they are or where theyre from, bonds of trust will form and endure and often last a lifetime. Its time to consider whether we should be providing more opportunities for service. Not just in the military, but importantly, in the civilian sector as well. Research by our scholar, isabelle sawhill, shows that americans are enthusiastic about National Service. What she calls an American Exchange program that would ask American Families across the country to voluntarily host a young person from another community for as much as a year while they perform their service, thats groundbreaking. If provided with the right opportunities, americans can Work Together across so many areas to prepare for and to respond for emergencies and disasters, to improve public spaces, to help our elderly americans to stay in their homes and provide training or Career Opportunities to lowincome youths. And that doesnt begin to even scratch the long list of opportunities and possibilities that lie before us. This event this morning by virtue of those who are participating and certainly those in the audience, this event this morning importantly lies at the intersection of where policy meets action. And the people that youll hear from this morning, the conversations that youll listen to this morning, will be all about translating policy into action. And thats so important. So we welcome our panelists. We welcome our guests. We welcome the conversation this morning. And most importantly, we welcome you. Were going out over webcast and were very much on the record, and with that, belle, may i offer you the floor, please, for your remarks and the first panel. Thank you. [ applause ] first panel should probably come right on up. Dont think theyre a shy group. So, good morning, everyone. Its great to see this group and i am so thrilled to be on the stage with so many leaders in the National Service area. Let me start by saying just a few words about National Service, itself. Ill be echoing to some extent what president john allen has just said. But im not sure it can be said too many times. We are a very divided nation. You all know that. Its a cultural problem. Its a political problem. Its an economic problem. So, i do want us not to forget about that. One writer recently said, we are texting and tweeting ourselves into disunion. I thought that was an interesting way of putting it. So we really need to have a good conversation about the potential of National Service to bring us together again and to get us off of our phones and into our communities. So, there are many benefits to National Service in addition to the role it can play in bringing us together. It has benefits for the participants. The young people who serve. It has benefits for the communities they serve. And youre going to hear much more about that through the rest of the morning. But the basic point, i think, is that democracy cannot flourish when we do not trust each other and do not trust our institutions. And i think National Service can play a role. This is no easy task, but we should do everything we can to repair some of these divisions. There is considerable evidence, now im just putting on for a second my hat as a researcher because ive delved into this a bit, lots of evidence that when people Work Together on a common task across divisions that would normally keep them apart, they learn, as john allen said, to trust and respect each other and to form bonds. Form bonds, and is the classic example of where we have seen that happen as he said. I personally got interested in this issue when i was working on a book last year called the forgotten americans, and i got interested in all of the usual policy solutions to the problem of people who have been left behind in our society or our economy, but it came to a conclusion at the end that public approximately see alone are the usual kinds of policies that we talk about here at places like brookings arent sufficient. Theyre necessary, but we also have to really Start Talking a lot more about relationships and about respect. Some work well be doing in the future will be saying a lot more about that. After i finish my book i decided i needed to field test the ideas and take them on the road. So i went out and did focus groups with three cities in america with middle and workingclass americans and one of the things that really surprised me was the degree of concern about these divisions and the degree of enthusiasm amongst the public and im not talking about a sophisticated public here. Im talking about ordinary, everyday working americans for doing something about those divisions and National Service appealed to them a lot. So i then came back and realized that at this point i didnt know nearly enough. In fact, i knew very little about the work that was going on by all the people who were sitting up here on this stage, so dr. Joe heck is the chairman on the commission of military national and Public Service, did i get that right . And that commission is going to be reporting back to congress in march and youll be hearing more about their work, but i think its very important. Barbara stewart is the ceo of the corporation for national and Community Service. The Major Federal Agency that has responsibility for americorp, seniorcorp and other Service Programs in the government. She has a wonderful background and nonprofit and from everything that ive been told, barbara, you are fulfilling that role very well in your current post, and next, we have duval patrick, former governor of massachusetts. I just finished reading your book about how you began on the south side of chicago, went to Milton Academy and ended up at harvard and harvard law school, if i remember correctly, and are now and have now served in some of the highest positions in the land. Its an inspiring story, so thank you, governor, for being here, and last, but definitely not least is jesse culvin, the ceo of Service Alliance who also has one of these multifaceted backgrounds thats equally impressive to everyone elses, but without further ado, ill turn this now over to dr. Heck. Well, thank you, bella. Good morning. My thanks to brookings and service year for putting this together and for hosting us this morning as well as my thanks to all of you either in the audience or watching over the web who have served, will serve after hearing this mornings conversations or are currently serving. Its an incredibly important time in our nations history as people have talked already this morning about how do we heal the rifts that we see in our society and how National Service is one of the potential solutions to healing these divides. It is my honor to serve as chairman of the National Commission on military and national and Public Service and for those who have not heard about the commission previously, we were charted by congress in the fiscal year 17 National Defense authorization act. It originally started as a commission to review whether or not women should have to register for selective service. However, the late senator john mcdane and senator jack reed saw an opportunity to do much more with the commission than just answer that single question and so they expanded the scope of the mandate to encourage more americans to participate across all service line, whether it be in uniform in the military, whether it be in a National Service program which we also include local community and similar programs or in Public Service which is finding a job in state, local, federal government or running for selected office. There are 11 bipartisan members with congress, and i am blessed to have a very Incredible Group of thought leaders across the Service Spectrum representing diverse ideas and we have worked over the last two years in listening to the American Public on views on service. As belle mentioned our goal is to issue a report in 2020 with recommendations back to congress, the American Public and the president about how we can actually encourage more americans to serve. I also want to thank john dulio in the audience who released the report on will america embrace National Service because it fits perfectly into our commissions mission which is every american inspired and eager to serve. So what have we been doing over the last two years since we started . Our first year was a factfinding tour. We traveled around the country. All nine census district, 15 state, 24 cities and met with over 300 organizations and received literally thousands of Public Comments either at our Public Meetings or via the internet via our website. We looked at what encourages people to serve, why arent they serving and what are the obstacles for those who desire to serve, but arent. So after we went around the nation on this listening tour, we came back and issued our interim report which, for those of you who have not yet had an opportunity to read is available at our website, inspired to serve. Com. Thats inspire, the numeral two. Gov and in that report we talk about who we are, where weve been and where were heading. So based on the years worth of research and public listening we came up with some potential recommendations on how to encourage more americans to serve. In the second year, we traveled to another ten states and held public hearings where we listened to 68 policy experts and received 40 statements for the record, issued eight memorandum, staff memorandum and started to vet some of the potential policy recommendations that we have under consideration. Upon completion of those public hearings, the commission is now in its delivered phase. We are now reviewing all of that information with the goal of compiling our report which hopefully will be on time in march of 2020 that will lay out the recommendations that the commission does want to put forward. So in my remaining time i want to stay at the 30,000foot level and speak generally where were headed because in the interest of time as a recovering politician, brevity and public speaking is not necessarily one of my strong suits so ill stay general and leave specifics to questions and answers. So what are some of the common themes that weve heard . What we first heard, and i guess isnt too surprising is that we do have an incredible culture of service in this nation today. Wherever we went we heard from americans who currently serve and we heard from americans who want to serve, they just want to know how. So we look at this culture of service which is one of the exceptional pieces of being an american and wanting to help our neighbors and how can we nurture that culture of service into an ethos of service to where service is not just encouraged, but expected. So that at a certain point in time its the individual who doesnt serve that is the odd person out and not the person who does serve. So that it becomes almost automatic as a right of growing up the conversation goes to so what are you going to do for your Service Project and how do we change that mindset and how do we change that culture . It begin, we believe with a strong and robust Civic Education program. We feel that over time, as academic curricula get more and more compressed and pressed for time and other projects that Civic Education is falling by the wayside in some states and by and large Civic Education has fallen away and how can we encourage someone to serve their community and their state and their nation when they dont truly understand the rights and responsibilities that go along with being a citizen of this democratic republic and its not just simply a high school u. S. History class. Its how do we weave common themes of Civic Education throughout the curricula regardless of subject so that our youth are exposed to these important principles throughout their academic life . It builds into there is a finite Service Project that a middle class has to do. A project with a specific goal done over a specific period of time to introduce them to the concept of actually serving. Moving to high school with perhaps a semester of service and we all know Spring Semester is pretty much with the senior year and youre shot and either waiting to start a job or go to school and what if that was completing a project over the course of the semester. Perhaps there should be Service Fellowships where Post High School or post college you geta vouch tore serve in a Service Program of your choice. Have the money, follow the service individual. So it begins with that piece. It then grows into how do we getmore individuals aware of Service Opportunities and how do we make them aspire to serve and then how do we grant access . The three buckets that were really looking at. You cant be or do what you dont know doesnt exist. You think about it, when i was growing up i saw peace corps commercials and i havent seen one in over 30 years. We smoke to cadets at fort knox, many of two who were two or threeyear scholarship students and none of them knew about the opportunity for a fouryear scholarship while they were in high school. No one talked to them about it. The youth take the asvab test in high school. Once we make them a wire, how do we inspire them. What are the incentives . Whether tobacco direct incentive, whether its appealing or altruistic, characteristic that they want to follow, but we then have to have them be inspired to want to serve. And then we have to have access. The commission is overwhelmingly successful and all 329 million americans want to serve. We know we wont have 321 Service Opportunity, but what we must do is make sure that for those who are aware and inspired that they have access to a clear and supportive path to service and that Service Opportunity has to be meaningful and worthwhile to that individual because we know that once you have someone serve one time in a meaningful way, they are hooked for life. They will come back and serve again. It may not be right after the first Service Opportunity and they go out to start their career and start a family at midcareer and say i now have the time and of the to serve again. Postretirement and they have the rsvp tomorrow and come back to serve as a senior. I bring it back to a medical a ge analogy. We want every american inspired and eager to serve and so with that, i call for your help, not only do we value your input, but we need your input as we consider our final recommendations and continue to draft our final report. Our Public Comment period remains open until december 31st of this year so i encourage everyone here today or listening who has a comment on these important issues. One, to read our interim report and see where we might be headed and two, to provide your comments on where you think we are headed and whether its right or wrong. Please do so via our website at inspire to serve. Gov because it is only through your help that we will achieve our vision of every american inspired and eager to serve. Thank you. [ applause ] that was inspiring about being inspiring. Barbara stewart . Thank you very much for having me here this morning and i appreciate brookings and Service Year Alliance for putting this on and its wonderful to be in a room full of people who know about service, are supporters of service. I am interested very much in the first two panels. For those of you who thought you might slip out and not hear the last panel, youre making a big mistake. The last panel is going to be fantastic. Its an opportunity to hear from our americorp members and alumni about how service has impacted their life and i encourage you to stay for the best panel, no offense to all of you. Its a pleasure to be with you all here this morning. As belle said, i lead the corporation for national and Community Service, and for those of you who may not be aware, were the federal agency for service and volunteering. So we promote service and volunteering and we administer the multiple a per cormericorp and we inspire all americans to volunteer outside of service and i am pleased to report that the percentage of americans who volunteer is slightly on the rise which is trick. 77 million americans volunteered in their communities last year, but today our focus is in National Service and the impact that that will have on our community at large. So a couple of things. We are actually celebrating the 25th anniversary this year, the first swearing in of the first class of a pmericorp members an thats a huge alumni network, but we continue to struggle with awareness of our programs as dr. Heck was saying. If you dont know about your opportunity to serve, then youre not going to serve. You need to be broadening that and ill touch on that a little bit further, but it is exciting to think about the impact that these over a million americans have had in our community. Again, i feel like im in a room of friend, but im going to just take a brief moment to touch on some of our community impact. Again, that youre probably well aware of, but more than half our resources support National Service programs that support education. Education which could be mentoring. It could be working with underprivileged children to make sure that they are grade ready. Education in various forms. We also have the ability to work on a broader array of programming and so many of our americorp members are engaged with Workforce Development helping veterans and military families achieve their potential working to improve the environment, helping after disasters, and i am forgetting some of the other fantastic things that we do that our americorp members do, but the impact theyre having in communities is demonstrative and really meaningful. Something that maybe we havent talked about as much historically is the impact that service has on the member. So we do an alumni Member Survey and this wont surprise you if you havent interacted with our americorp or senior core alumni, but there are so many significant benefits to service for the individuals who serves. One for older volunteers is a health benefit, but when we see the developmental benefits of younger people who serve in americorp, its really awesome. We see that they are better at problem solving. We see that they are better at working with individuals who are from backgrounds that are different than theirs. We see that theyre better at time management. Theyre better at financial management. Theyre more confident and selfassured. In short, theyre developing into the kind of individuals that any employer would seek to hire, and frankly, anyone would want to be a neighbor with. So service is really a developmental experience that is significantly meaningful for the individual that participates. Also, its been touched on it and i ans it pate well continue to discuss the impact that service has on society. A challenging time of divisions across the country and shouldering shoulder to shoulder from a different socioeconomic, geographic, philosophical different background from yourselves is arguably the best way to learn understanding about other people, and i see this time and again. Ive had the pleasure in the 20 months that ive been in this current role to see an awful lot of amazing americorp members and volunteers. If youll indulge me ill speak briefly about an opportunity that i see a team of americorp members serving in florida after Hurricane Michael and to see individuals from such very different backgrounds, i had a chance to chat with the teams and to speak with the young woman who had a masters degree in anthropology. Who was serving next to a young man who told me that he had been in a gang in l. A. Working with a gentleman who was taking a gap year before he went to columbia, and i can go on and on, but just a really interesting mix of committed individuals who were serving in a community that wasnt even their own. They had traveled to florida to help people that they will never see again, but whose lives theyve changed and this is just one little anecdote. There are hundreds of thousands of similar anecdotes going on every year with americorp members. So i just share that as an example of the bridge building that occurs when people are working shoulder to shoulder with people who are very different from theirs in terms of their original background and how that does serve to bring us together as a country. So do we need more National Service . I think thats going to be also a topic of the day, and i would argue absolutely. We absolutely need more National Service. As the individual leading the organization that implements our National Service programs, though, i would just throw out a couple of cautionary comments. One, if were to grow National Service significantly, we need to be investing in our nonprofit infrastructure. The way our National Service programs currently are funded through the corporation for national and Community Service is a combination of a variety of programs, but our Biggest Program is both a Formula Program where money is given to states to fund National Service programs in their communities and a Competitive Program and while certainly, theres a demand for more National Service opportunities, theres certainly more capacity out there now to provide a highquality National Service opportunity for americans. Its not unlimited. If we were to double the amount of resources in a year, we would really need to be also committing to strengthening our partners in the field. We would need to be building the nonprofit capacity. We also need to be building the capacity of the corporation for national and Community Service and thats something that i have been very focused on in the time that i have been with cncs. We need to strengthen our infrastructure so that we are well positioned for the longterm growth of National Service and thats something im very committed to doing. The last point i would want to make really piggybacks on what dr. Heck says and that is that we need to broaden awareness of these programs. I want to make the assumption that folks in the room are familiar with americorp and familiar with the importance of volunteerism and there are hundreds a hundred million let me be more specific. Our Research Indicates that only half of americans have ever heard of americorp. Thats unfair, and you cant serve in these programs if you dont know about them. Service is a lifechanging opportunity and i think youll hear that throughout the morning and youll see that in living color when you see our americorp members and alums speak to you, but if you dont know about the opportunity you cant take advantage of it, so one of the things that i hope that well all focus on and certainly the corporation for national and Community Service will be working on and piggybacking off of the great work of the National Commission is how do we broaden the number of americans that are aware of Service Opportunities so that they can take advantage of them . So again, i really appreciate this opportunity to be with all of you this morning, and i look forward to hearing from my fellow panelists. [ applause ] barbara, thank you, and thank you for your service. Governor . Thank you, bill. Good morning, everybody. My thanks also to brookings and to the Service Year Alliance for convening us here today. I am not surprised that theres a throughline quite common from general allen and my fellow panelists. Im just a little sorry that i have to come near the end because youve all heard it before, and i think most of you are here because you already believe it. Jesse, im sorry for you. Youre the very last. I i, too, very strongly believe in the importance of National Service. I want to make a point about the urgency of moving toward National Service, indeed, universal National Service and tell you why. As belle said at the outset, i grew up in the south side of chicago in the 50s and 60s generally on public assistance and not thought of as the garden spot. Its usually thought of and aptly and rightly described as a place of deprivation and often about things we didnt have, but one of the things we did have was a very strong sense of community because there was a time when every child was under the jurisdiction of every single adult on the block. You messed up down the street in front of mrs. Jones shed get you upside the head and then youd get home and you would get it two times and what adults were trying to get across to us was that membership in the community is understanding that you have a stake in your neighbors dreams and struggles as well as your own, that we are about common cause and common destiny. Fast forward a few decades to a meeting i attended a summer ago. So this is 2018 in aspen of a smallish group on a bipartisan basis of former secretaries of state, nsa leaders and other senior diplomats and Security Officials and we had a briefing in that meeting about what the russian interference of the 2016 election was about. Much of this has been reported on since. The pattern and campaign of misinformation and disinformation. The ways in which, you know, conspiracy theories were fomented, even to the point of organizing rallies by, you know, invisible and unheard of and unreal candidates and causes to which people came and made and made their presence felt. The charges of voter fraud and interference that were so often repeated that they became for some, evidence of a rigged election and now were learning that much of that effort was organized around race. It struck me then as i listened to all of that chilling detail, not just how brazen it was to undertake, to undermine our democracy and not just how insidious it was to do so essentially by turning us on ourselves, but by how easy it was. How easy, and it was easy because we dont know each other. Its harder to call someone a name and to marginalize someone you know. Its harder to dismiss a different point of view if it comes from someone you know and have learned to respect. I remember the morning after i was nominated to head the Civil Rights Division and the justice department, the very next morning i was asked by senator kennedy, my senator to come up to the hill and to stand just outside the doors of the senate and shake hands with senators as they came off the floor for a vote and this nervous, 30somethingyearold am in me coming in after quite a lot of trouble in filling the position and all of the controversy that went around this. Remember this bill . And there i was, and i must have shaken hands with 70 senators, and i remember afterwards asking the senator, why did we do that . And he said because its a lot harder to attack someone whose hand youve shaken. I support National Service because we dont know each other, because our sense of National Community is frayed and in some ways is unraveling and because unless that is repaired all hope for lasting and meaningful change, change that meets our generational responsibility to leave things better for those who come behind us, all hope of that is in jeopardy, and i know it works. Ten years ago this coming january as part of the second inauguration of our administration in massachusetts, we launched an initiative called project 351 which brought together eighth graders from each of the 351 cities and towns in the commonwealth around service and we gathered in boston and we had a Service Project we did together and we talked about service and we celebrated service and we charged these eighth graders to go back to their communities and be ambassadors, indeed, evangelists for service and we focused on that because it tends that the athletes they get their recognition. Sometimes the good citizens dont, and this was about elevating that ten years in, this initiative is still under way as a functioning nonpromitt and the estimates are that those young people have touched 650,000 lives in our commonwealth and made each other understand that service is not just about what you do, but who you are, and its about learning and modeling the importance of turning to each other rather than on each other. And that is how communities are built in small ways or nationally and we are hungry for and needful of this today. Right now. I am so glad youre here and i am so hopeful that we will go from here and advocate for universal, National Service for our own sake and the future of our democracy. Im delighted to be with you. Thank you. [ applause ] governor, thank you. I love what you pioneered in massachusetts with lifting up citizenship and not just athletic and academic achievement. We really need that. Jesse, so wonderful to have you here, and sorry you had to be last because you were the key person in helping you and your organization in putting this together. Thank you again for that. Im jess and the service of Service Year Alliance. Its great to be here. The first thing i want to say is we take the Alliance Part of our organizations name very seriously, so on behalf of my team i want to convey to belle, the Brookings Institute to the general, barbara and everyone here, thank you for your partnership for making this happen and for being allies. As the youngest person on stage who was hired to be a nextgeneration leader to usher Service Year Alliance into its next chapters i want to share two things with you this morning. The first is i want to share the perspective of a leader of a team who aspires to stand on the shoulders of the giants of those who built the National Service movement and those who took the movement into its next phases and second, im really excited to tell everybody about our serve america together campaign. I am an elder millennial [ laughter ] which in plain english means when the 9 11 attacks occurred i was 17 years old and i was a senior in high school and my initial reaction was to get the military recruiters on the phone and that was one of the many heart attacks i gave my hippie parents. I tried to ground my pursuit of education, and i studied arabic and i studied the middle east and afterwards i went to syria, and i taught english to iraqi refugees. This was in 2006 so the war in iraq was nearing its lowest points. I could see from damascus that if we got it wrong in baghdad the violence would spread over from iraq into syria and throughout the rest of the region. So i came home and i joined the military. I served in the army. I served as an army ranger. I served as an Intelligence Officer and served four combat deployments to afghanistan. Its in my military experience especially in afghanistan where i learned the power of what happens when americans of all walks of life join together to tackle shared problems. Its the powerful, connective tissue that occurs when you share a fox hole with your fellow americans. We learn to trust in each other and you learn to trust the man that sent us in the fox hole in the first place. If youve been to a habitat for humanity work site or an americorp classroom you are seeing that same connective tissue. Different type of fox hole, but same connective tissue. My National Service experience transformed my personal relationship with my community, with my country and my own citizenship. When i met my wife on a blind date, my wife served in a Police Uniform actually here in washington, d. C. And had worked for members of congress on the other side of the political aisle, what got us to date number two was not my wit or my charm. It was our common experience around our service. Flash forward to 2017, my wife and i heard that the first year of marriage is particularly easy so we just went ahead and had a baby and ran for congress. [ laughter ] on the campaign, we built a coalition that extended from a Bernie Sanders chapter over here all of the way to members of the president george h. W. And bush administration, but to be a candidate on the campaign trail in 2018 was to have a frontrow ticket to the divides, the tearing apart of our civic fabrics along socioeconomic, political, religious divides. And it was a glimpse to a very dystopian future which will be our country if we dont invest in solutions that unite us. So thats why i am so excited about National Service especially Service Years because i believe they have the power and we at Service Year Alliance believe we have the power to bring people together at common cause. At Service Year Alliance, we see the best antidote to the divides that were talking about this morning as Service Years and thats why i am excited to talk about the serve america together campaign. So serve america together campaign. The purpose of the campaign is to make a National Service a part of growing up in this country. It has three goals. The first, we want to elevate and make National Service a key issue in the 2020 president ial campaign. We want candidates to be asked about and be expected to have plans the same way you would expect for health care or trade or foreign policy. Thats number one. Number two, we want to advance and elevate and push forward legislation at the federal level around National Service and number three, we want to advance an ecosystem of partnerships and ideas and policies that are going to make National Service something that every Young American and it should be a common expectation opportunity that they have. It is the first of its Kind Coalition and we were drawing upon leaders from both the civilian and military spheres. We have a Phenomenal Group of leaders leading it and thats general Stanley Mcchrystal who happens to be the board here at Service Year Alliance and we have secretary Condoleezza Rice and aryaiana huffington and we e very proud to have you in our corner, sir. When we launched the campaign in june we also launched a president ial challenge. To make National Service a priority in the first 100 days of the administration and to roll out big, bold, ambitious plans to scale and make National Service a priority. Three candidates have directly accepted the challenge, mayor pete is the highest profile of those. Many other candidates have rolled out and theyve not rolled out big, bold plans around National Service. We want every candidate to accept challenge we can live with at the end of this. The same way you would expect him to have a plan for health care. We at Service Year Alliance think service is inevitable. We think its inevitable because there is a civic divide and we are entering a phase when theyll deepen. Theyre getting deeper and deeper and our fabric is continuing to be torn apart that well have leaders grasping for solutions to help bring us back together to unify us and we think National Service is the best antidote. So for us, our message is rather than start five, ten, 15 years ago, to echo what governor patrick said its an urgent moment and lets get started right now. If we if we are going to get from, we are going to need leaders from both sides of the aisle who are thinking about the day after tomorrow or the day after the day after tomorrow, looking for ways to unify the country. And if were going to make National Service parts of growing up in america we need to strengthen our alliance. So if you have a child or grandchild at home who is over the age of 18 and this sounds like an opportunity they should be thinking about, come talk us to. We can help. If youre a hill staffer, please go back to your boss and tell them this is an issue that they need to sink their teeth into. There is an opportunity for leadership. If youre connected to a president ial campaign, go talk to your candidate and tell them to answer the challenge and make National Service a big part of their plan and to everyone else, come join our alliance and help make a year of pay fulltime service, a service year part of growing up in america and expectation and opportunity for all Young Americans. You can tell i ran for office because i have some time on the clock. What ill do is ill ask members of my team here to raise their hand. We have a good chunk of on you are team here, so if you have questions about Service Year Alliance and how you can get involved there are some great americans raising their hands right now. I want to echo once again, thank you very much. Thanks for the panel and thanks for being here and cant wait. [ applause ] thank you, jesse. If any of you have questions youd like to ask each other or further comments you would like to make in response, now is the time to do it. I have a few questions if you dont and then in a few minutes well turn to the audience itself, so those of you who are out there, be thinking what you might want to ask when we get to that point. While everybodys thinking, ill start out by throwing a question back out to dr. Heck. You talked a lot about getting out around the country and listening to people which i think is so commendable, and it sounded like the reaction was very positive. I just want to push a little bit on where were the divides in the divide . In other words, where were people saying, yeah, its a good idea to have National Service, but what about x . What were some of the pushback, as well as the enthusiasm . Interestingly, belle, there really wasnt much pushback to the concept of National Service. I think where there was some debate that we encountered was over whether or not it should be mandatory, universal rather remain a voluntary program. Certainly those that want to keep National Service as a volunteer program feel that that is one of the most important, underlying premises of service in this country is the willingness for somebody to actually volunteer. As we define National Service for the commission, its the personal commitment of time, energy and talent to a mission that contributes to the common good of protecting the citizens and promoting the general welfare and folks feel that the most benefit comes from volunteering and its interesting. We met with High School Students and we talked to them about the some of thor of service and the gap year where it would be a year of service. Universally they were all for it, but they said just dont ask me to do it and they want to do, and the other side, as weve heard, it should be a right of passage as in foreign counteeries and we spoke to other countries who spoke about national or military service. I think that was the biggest divide, but encouraging to us was the fact that no one actually said i dont think National Service is a good idea. Okay. Barbara stewart and also governor patrick, i think this is a very complicated issue when you think about whats the role of the federal government and whats the role of states and communities in the Nonprofit Sector and im sure as a management challenge in your current position you had to struggle with that as has someone who served as governor. Would you like to say anything more about this difficulty of making these very complicated partnerships work and managing a federal agency like the one youre in right now . Id be happy to take a stab at that and then the governor may have ideas, as well, but our programs are really all about partnership. So, for example, the federal government is the largest funder, but all of the resources that we deplay against National Service are matched and so the billion dollar investment that the federal government makes in National Service actually translates into over 2 billion of investment. States, local governments and nonprofits are a big piece of that. A significant amount of our funding flows through State Government so we have partnerships with state commissions. It does create some complication and it also creates a big web of partnerships and alliance as jesse was saying which i think is one of the strengths of the National Service ecosystem, but it also creates some real complications. When you want to make change. Some people embrace that change and recalls dont embrace it so quickly. It that you have to ge the buyin of a whole lot of folks. I also was frustrated in the early months at ncscs to know that the governors dont know about the wonderful resource they have. The expectation when americorp was developed was that the governors themselves would be depply involv deeply involved and that hasnt fully occurred and one of the challenges is to make sure State Government recognizes what a wonderful asset the service is in promoting their own policy agendas because of the nimbleness and the local nature of National Service. Anything you want to add to that . No. [ laughter ] i guess i would just say this, belle, because i want to be respectful of your question, and i think barbara did really nail it, but i think we should be careful not to let the complexity of broadening a program of National Service and in my view, it should be everybody dissuade us from the importance of doing so. It may have something to do with the pace of which we get to everybody, but the notion that service would be available only to those who could afford to take the time and not everybody, including those who need an income in order to be able to do it, the notion that there isnt profound unmet need all over the country, that is met in part by people taking responsibility for that dimension of their community and indeed the Development Opportunities that have been talked about over and over again here today in doing so, and i think in a way, sooner or later america will have to decide whether were a country or not. Do we really mean to be one nation, and so i had that reaction and here comes the federal government again and this is not the federal government as if it is some thing out there. This is us. You and i. This is our democracy, and our National Community, and i think that the point thats been made a couple of times about the importance of collaborating through other agencies and other organizations and leaders to make service real across all of our differences is the strategy that worked for us in massachusetts, and i think has worked nationally and can need to be scaled. Thank you. Jesse culvin, im sitting here wishing that i was an elder millennial when im actually an elder elder. [ laughter ] but i think its great that your new energy is being added to all the efforts that are under way here and you mentioned a lot about the Democratic Political candidates who are or are not jumping onboard with this. Do you want to say a little bit more about the politics of this . I think what youre hearing from most of the people up here as wed like it to be a bipartisan effort and hope it can be and i dont want to put you on the spot, but, is that going to be a challenge . Im an army ranger which means im trained to be on the spot. Thats okay. I appreciate the question. This is a bipartisan issue. There are challenges that well have to deal with navigating capitol hill. So lets s. T. A. R. T. With real, ordinary people. So if you look at polling across the country, this polls at 75, 80 across the country and its higher among democrat depps and independents and higher among young people. Every moment in the National Service movement where weve had significant progress it has been a bipartisan effort regardless of which party was in the white house at the time, and in a second, the vice chair of Service Year Alliance who coauthored this paper were talking about, he led the domestic policy counsel for president george w. Bush. So thats part one. Part two is that there are things that were working on to help make the case and we work with ten Impact Communities and its worked around the country and thank communities around the country and its from boston to austin, texas and the coast is represented. The heartland is represented and the the south and big cities and rural appalachia, kentucky and the service looks different in each of those communities and thats just fine. We want it to be locally driven. In some of those communities the service use is being used to tackle Opioid Epidemic and elsewhere is how do we give people the opportunity. Youth that have been out of school for a year and an opportunity to change their Career Trajectories and to open up to people who, frankly, dont look like me. The more we do that, the more tangible if we can take someone hypothetically, toledo, ohio and show them that this is a community with the National Service looks like and that will make our case easier and the last thing ill say is the teenagers in your life, they probably frustrate you because they can be frustrating and they have very little trust and patience for their parents and grandparents and theyre out on the streets marching. They feel the urgencies and they have no patience and they want that. So what must be frustrating in your personal lives is one of the main reasons this will get across the finish line. If i can put an exclamation mark on that. From my experience, theyre one of the few truly bipartisan issues that are being discussed in this town in washington, d. C. , which makes it a pleasure to be part of. Weve seen increases in our appropriation the last two years under Republican House and senate, and there a a lot of bipartisan support for National Service and we should be capitalizing on that. We need to be taking advantage of the breath of support because its one of the great assets of National Service. Thank you. Those were really important comment, i think and i want to reinforce something that, jesse, you said about two of the people who are sitting in the audience and that are going to be on the next panel. Theyre sitting next to each other and im looking right at them and one is bill galston, Deputy Director of the policy council of the clinton administration, and i was there as well and we worked hard on this, but then there is john bridgeland who played a very Important Role as director of the was it also called the Domestic Policy Council and the bush administration, and so i think we have that represented here today and i am so glad you spoke to that. All right. I think its probably unless anybody up here has anything more theyd like to say im going to open this up to the audience. Wait for someone to bring you a mike and please introduce yourself and your affiliation and try to keep it relatively short. I may collect a few different questions and then let the panel here decide which ones they want to tackle. All right. Start right here in the front row. Im mitt see with the Naval Postgraduate School and i was the first to join the peace Core Task Force when kennedy made it a program. I believe in Public Service. I just have a recommendation. I think the most important thing in life is relationship, and i think thats a phrase that would be really useful to incorporate in what youre talking about and when we live in the city where the president just destroys relationships we really need to have other voices saying this really matters. Thank you. Back there. Yes, you. Right. Actually, i was pointing to this guy right here. Go ahead. Im bill with the center of conscience and war and we heard about universal service and the expectation of service and we also heard from dr. Heck about young folks who said we like service, but dont force us to do it. So my question is if youre talking about universal service are you thinking its going to be mandatory and if so, how will you deal with the people who say im not going to do it and if its not going to be mandatory, how are you envisioning making it universal . Thats a really great question, but lets hold and get a couple more. Hi. Im bob reed with peace through action usa and we aspire to implement National Service. My question, any of you could answer it if you choose is about income disparity between the service lines. Im working on budgeting for some privately funded positions right now and boy am i having an awareness check of what it costs to actually afford housing in different communities in the country and americorp Living Alliance at its highest level doesnt cut it. So i just think as we move forward, growing National Service we need to Pay Attention to are we properly compensating the people serving and also looking at the differentials like a Public Service federal employee is getting a lot more than an americorp member and military pays all over the place and so i would just be interested in that. Thank you. Right here. Great. Thank you. First of all, a huge thank you to this panel. Im the executive secretary of the Harriet Truman Scholarship Foundation so i share with you this business of Public Service and i love your sentiments as far as this genuinely being an alliance. What i would say is i came to work with you. For those of you not familiar with us, weir the president ial memorial to president truman. He didnt go to college and so rather than having a brick and mortar monument on the mall, i love those, theyre beautiful, but unlike the Washington Monument and lincoln memorial, we provide a 30,000 scholarship for each state by state competitive process for the most outstanding student. Pull the microphone closer. Basically we are a scholarship for young people making commitments to career and Public Service and dove tailing on the economic question. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments here, but for so many of our scholars, its an economic question. So its not that theyre not interested and not that theyre not keen, but with college debt being what it is, with Affordable Housing being questions in so many cities we want to make sure we can support them. So its a way of saying i hope this is the start of an ongoing conversation. Wed love to work with you, but i really think as also a former government economist, we need to be thinking about how we make this sustainable and sustained because the sentiment, the interest, the appetite is there and its just hard when it comes to dollars and cents. Okay. Thank you. Im going to take one more, bob, and then well come back to the panel to see if you all have comments on what issues that have been raised. Thank you. Im bob stein and i am elder elder, i consider myself refocused. The panel emphasized the arguments and evidence that people would want to serve and would benefit from it, but how do you get the institutions who you want them to work with, barbara stewart, you briefly mentioned that because it takes time to mentor train and advise people. If you dont spend the time and their experience isnt that good, so what incentives can you provide for institutions to take on these volunteers . These are all great questions, and really do need to be grappled with. Anybody want to tackle one or more of them . Ill give the perspective of where the commission has gone on these issues because we have looked at all of them. Certainly, the idea of when i say everyone who wants to serve should have a clear and supportive path to service means that they should have the opportunity to serve and be paid a wage or a stipend that allows them to serve without suffering any economic detriment, right . We want all americans to inspire and eager to serve regardless of socioeconomic gas. And its a lot about the gap year and its not about to take the year off in college and if we want to heal the divide in the nation and then it goes to whats been said with the panelists and putting people from diverse, socioeconomic backgrounds together in service to a common cause, and that means we have to be able to provide the resources necessary for all individuals to have that opportunity, long story short, its one of the areas that were looking at is how to better define and reestablish the benefits packages, and the various forms of service, and they have the clear ask supported path. I do not plan to reveal any of the recommendations that will be coming out. I would say i would not be surprised to see a portion of the final report, that addresses this area in great detail. Terrific. Yeah. Jesse . Ill try to answer four questions at once quickly. We are very clear at the alliance. We are advocating for voluntary. We believe the way to get there is peer pressure and thats about common expectation and opportunity. We believe we will hit a Tipping Point when young people meet and say where did you serve and if you havent served and when people started looking at their shoes because theyre embarrassed because they didnt serve thats how you get to universal. Costs, i mentioned the alliance and theres a great member of the Broader Alliance called silver nest and i one of our Impact Communities. We recognize that folks doing Service Years cannot afford the rent based off their living stipend. Its a nonprofit weve brought in and theyre helping match refocused elder elders with perhaps an empty room in their home with a young person doing a service year. Theres all sorts of wonderful byproducts that come out of those relationships. Costs and who does Service Years. The reason we advocate our mission is a year of paid fulltime service. When i joined the military in 2006, the word privilege wasnt really in the lexicon. Had i wanted go in a different direction and done a service year, i would have had the economic privilege. My parents could have supplemented me. If we want to get to the number of people doing Service Years, were going to have to unlock communities who dont have that privilege, which means some of these Service Years are going to be around work force development. Rather than sign up on perhaps a recruiting message around service for service sake because you dont have the privilege to think about it that way, you have to help a Family Member put food on the table, its about giving you a job opportunity and a career trajectory you wouldnt have if not for the service year. The last thing is cost in general. You hire an army ranger, you get a blind answer. So im going to be blunt. Service years are expensive. Average is about 22,000 a year per person. Big, bold ideas often cost a lot of money. What you probably dont know and if youre a hill staffer, i encourage you to take this back to your boss, the federal government gets 2 back for every dollar it invests in Service Years. So it gets 1 back in terms of taxes. If you look at the data, people who do Service Years tend to earn more over their lifetime. That comes back in the form of taxes. Thats a really good thing. The second thing is if the federal government gets a dollar back in terms of federal social safety net programs, so in plain english, that means people who do Service Years tend to have to rely upon federal social safety net programs. This might sound counterintuitive, but if you the second thing is if the federal government gets a dollar back in terms of federal social safety net programs, so in plain english, that means people who do Service Years tend to have to rely upon federal social safety net programs. This might sound counterintuitive, but if you work for a member of congress that is interested in reducing the size of federal programs, service year programs are a great place to invest. So trying to answer four questions quickly. Thank you, bell. Terrific. Any other comments from up here . I love what jesse had to say, and i love your examples. I think that was terrific. I would only elaborate to say partnerships is the way we make Service Years more available to a greater population and some creativity. In some of the communities where we operate the local Transportation Authority has offered free transportation. In other places, we have additional benefits offered by local partners. We need to be continuing to develop those partnerships. Our partners at the state and local level need to continue to develop them, but we need to make these Service Years available to all americans regardless of their background, and those kind of partnerships are how were going to do it. Okay. Well, i think its time to thank all of you for being here and taking the time to do this. Its been a terrific discussion. And were going to take a tenminute break now. No more, please. Come back because the next panel is going to be very interesting, and the final panel, as we said earlier, is going to be dynamite. So many