This Independence Day, I’m thinking quite a bit about opportunity — what it means to have it in America and how we can provide more of it to more young Americans.
Over the next year, in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, Americans are engaging in a national conversation about our priorities and the best ways to achieve them. I firmly believe that we need to be talking about access to education, jobs, skills development, and opportunities to connect young people with Americans who have different backgrounds from their own.
The last general election demonstrated that too many of our fellow Americans have been left behind by socioeconomic shifts and that the haves and have-nots hardly know each other. Opportunities — to achieve, to grow, to connect with one another — are unequally distributed in communities across the United States.
I’ve seen young people step up and say they want to make a difference, to help their communities thrive, earn access to higher education, invest in their futures, and help solve problems — sometimes in their own backyards and sometimes halfway around the world. But where should these driven, idealistic, and patriotic young people turn?
Seventy-one percent of young people in America are ineligible for military service at any level — because they lack a high-school diploma or have a disqualifying health problem or a criminal record. health, or criminal records. They will never have the opportunity to join the ranks of the brave men and women in our armed services.
But there is another opportunity to serve that would attract many young people and would help close some of these opportunity gaps. Research shows that one million young Americans would serve each year in civilian national service programs like AmeriCorps — more than 10 times the number of available positions.
Stop Turning Away Idealists
Because the federal government hasn’t made national service a financial priority, we are telling too many young people that we don’t want their idealism, we don’t want their can-do spirit, and we don’t believe they should have the chance to earn money for college through national service — a benefit afforded to those who complete a year of service with AmeriCorps. They should have the opportunity to serve others and simultaneously develop critical professional and leadership skills that employers increasingly value and will benefit their lives for years to come.
It’s why I’m proud to be co-chair of Serve America Together, a campaign to make national service part of growing up. Alongside more than a dozen leading civilian and military service organizations and prominent Americans like (Ret.) General Stan McChrystal, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, we believe that a year or more of national service in a civilian or military service corps should be an expectation and opportunity for every young American. One of the campaign’s primary objectives is to elevate national service as a key issue in the 2020 presidential election.
A Presidential Platform for Volunteerism
Presidential elections are agenda-setting moments for the country — a time for big, visionary ideas. This is why we launched the Serve America Together Presidential Challenge.
We are challenging all the 2020 presidential candidates to share their plan to transform national service in America and commit to making national service a top priority in the first 100 days of their term. The campaign is urging the presidential candidates not only to consider expanding current national service programs like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps but also to think creatively about innovative ways to use national service as a strategy to tackle pressing problems facing America.
As contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination and President Trump are competing for precious airtime and the votes of the American people, I want to know what they plan to do about this inequality of opportunity and how we as a nation can stop turning down almost three quarters of our young people who stand up and say they want to serve.
Why aren’t they proposing joint recruiting centers, where young people can walk in and learn about all of the national-service opportunities available, both civilian or military? Or how about a corps that focuses on fighting the opioid epidemic while developing 21st century skills?
America needs these young patriots and their commitment to community and country to build the future they deserve. This 4th of July, let’s make a commitment not to turn them away anymore.
Laura Lauder, a venture philanthropist in Silicon Valley, is a co-chair of the Serve America Together campaign to make national service part of growing up in America.
