Carolyn Jack

Editor and CEO, Geniocity.com
A project of The Genius Group LLC

Will many hands make light work of recreating America?

While we’re on the subject of different kinds of job corps and the difference they might make to U.S. infrastructure and education: An important piece of national-service legislation creating several new types of  volunteer job corps was passed by the House of Representatives about 10 days ago. President Obama was expected to sign it soon after returning to Washington, D.C., Tuesday after his eight-day European tour.

The M. Kennedy Serve America Act" href="http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/03/the-edward-m-kennedy-serve-ame.shtml">Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act dedicates $6 billion over five years to creating 175,000 new volunteer positions for Americans of all ages, from middle-school students to retirees, and to establishing four new service corps: Clean Energy, Education, Healthy Futures (helping create access to health care) and Veterans Service. It also increases hands-on, service-education opportunities for volunteers and increases the money awards for formal education that volunteers can earn for themselves or their children.

The new  thousands of volunteers are expected to make the nation’s disaster-relief efforts more effective and to generate economic benefits in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

That’s a lot of helping hands. But I wonder how much Americans’ ever-more-desperate need to earn money will discourage  them from volunteering. I hope I’m wrong, but feeding the mouths at home may trump feeding their own souls.