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Written by: Heather Zimar
Published: 10/08/2001 McCain Calls for Greater National-Service Opportunities
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), in an article published in the Washington Monthly magazine, calls for the expansion of national-service programs.
In the October article, McCain says that Americans have an impulse to serve their communities and nation, especially after last month’s terrorist attacks. However, he says they often do not always receive the chance. “What is lacking today is not a need for patriotic service, nor a willingness to serve, but the opportunity,” he says.
The exception to this trend is AmeriCorps, the national service program started by former president, Bill Clinton, in 1994, reports McCain. Like many other Republicans, McCain acknowledges that he opposed the program initially. “We feared it would be another ‘big government program’ that would undermine true volunteerism, waste money in “make-work” projects, or be diverted into political activism,” he said. “We were wrong.”
AmeriCorps members tutored over 100,000 third graders during the 1999-2000 school year and significantly helped improve their scores on reading performance tests. “Having seen results like these-and having often seen Americorps members work on the ground—more and more of my GOP colleagues have changed their minds about the program,” says McCain.
Despite results like these, AmeriCorp needs to emulate the smaller programs within their organization such as AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), which is structured along military lines, suggests the Senator. NCCC has provided disaster relief to various cities after floods, hurricanes, and fires, he says.
He also praised the group City Year, an AmeriCorps group that operates in 13 American cities organizing after-school activities and helping the elderly in assisted-living facilities.
McCain says that Congress should expand these two programs, which together include only 2,200 of AmeriCorps’ 50,000 members. “The whole national service enterprise should be expanded, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that every young person who wants to serve can serve,” he said.
McCain added that AmeriCorps needs to be more recognizable, noting that more than 200,000 Americans have served in the program, yet only two out of three Americans say they have heard the program. He suggests that U.S. colleges promote such services by devoting more work-study funds community service.
Besides expanding the AmeriCorps program, McCain also says that military recruitment needs to be improved, and that the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) on college campuses should be revived. “It is important to find better incentives and opportunities for more young Americans to choose service in the military, if not for a career, then at least for a limited period of time,” he says.
“National service is a crucial means of making our patriotism real, to the benefit of both ourselves and our country,” he concludes.
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