ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 14, 1997 TAG: 9702140009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
PRESIDENT Clinton recently joined with former President Bush and retired Gen. Colin Powell to announce a national summit to promote volunteerism. It was a warm and fuzzy bipartisan photo opportunity.
The summit itself - to be held in Philadelphia in April - will likely be a gusher of same. Former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and former first ladies Lady Bird Johnson and Nancy Reagan, are expected to attend.
But let's not dismiss this as simply show time for politicians. It is more than that.
Almost all organizations, including churches, that depend on volunteers to carry out programs to help the needy or advance grass-roots community projects are hurting for helping hands.
They've been hit by a tide of cultural and economic change: families where both parents must work or single parents must hold down two or more jobs; downsizing companies that do not smile on employees' taking time off during the day to drive a route for the League of Older Americans' Meals on Wheels or handle hot-line calls to crisis-intervention centers.
Fortunately, in many communities such as the Roanoke Valley there's a good number of retirees who generously give their time and talents to volunteer-dependent programs. Encouragingly, too, many teen-agers are showing a greater interest in volunteerism, whether it's helping out at a local nursing home or working with at-risk elementary-school children.
Willing retirees, though, cannot fill the entire void. Neither can teens whose participation in community-service endeavors still usually requires adult supervision. The retirees, moreover, won't be around forever - and the teens, once they enter the work force and start their own families may well be caught up in the same pressures that prevent many of their parents from volunteering now.
The Clinton-Bush summit can't reverse the socioeconomic trends that threaten many civic and religious organizations with a shortage of personpower to carry out their good works. But the event can serve the nation well if it reminds us of what volunteerism can do.
The purpose is not, as some politicians seem to think, taking up the slack in human services and programs - educational, environmental, health, welfare, etc. - that government would like to abandon.
Rather, as Gen. Powell put it, volunteering ``is about each and every one of us who have been blessed by the wealth of this country sharing that blessing by reaching down and reaching back and lifting up somebody in need.''
Each of us so blessed has that responsibility. Reminded, surely more of us - however busy our schedules - can squeeze out a little more time and energy to pay the debt we owe.
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