National Service & Volunteering

Service cultivates citizens. Service compels young people out of their comfort zones, allowing them to serve alongside people of different races, ethnicities, backgrounds, and beliefs toward a shared goal. Through service and volunteering, individuals also build skills for future careers—an understanding of others, the dignity of work and discipline, a sense of personal agency to effect change, and an ability to work in teams. Making national service an expectation—a new American rite of passage from youth to adulthood—will renew and redefine for this generation the role of citizens in our democracy, promote an understanding of rights and responsibilities, and cultivate the leaders that our communities and nation need to tackle our toughest challenges across our differences.