John Bridgeland
August 28, 2009
Kennedy dream lives on in our volunteer spirit By John M. Bridgeland Cincinnati Enquirer August 28,2009 Cincinnati native John M. Bridgeland, chief of staff in the 1990s for then-Rep. Rob Portman, had a close working relationship in recent years with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy. Sen. Edward Kennedy will be remembered for many achievements in Congress. I remember him for the legacy of community and national service he left our nation. It was a torch his brother, President John F. Kennedy, had wanted to pass. When President Kennedy issued his call to all Americans to “ask not,” America was already at the zenith of its civic life. As Robert Putnam noted in “Bowling Alone,” the decades that followed John Kennedy’s inaugural challenge showed that most activities that define our civic life – volunteering, membership in voluntary associations, church attendance, philanthropic giving and trust in key institutions – all significantly declined. Presidents since Washington have tried to awaken the national consciousness by asking Americans to serve causes greater than themselves. Many presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have had specific initiatives, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, Peace Corps and AmeriCorps, which provided new opportunities and new resources for American volunteers. Observers such as Alexis de Tocqueville in the 19th century highlighted America’s unique volunteer tradition. Even though America’s volunteer spirit, in the words of Ronald Reagan, was like a deep and mighty river flowing through the history of our nation, our country had never fulfilled its civic promise. Applications to programs like Teach for America and City Year always greatly outpaced available positions. Volunteer centers routinely turned volunteers away, not having the resources to train and manage them. President Kennedy’s dream of 100,000 Americans serving abroad every year through his Peace Corps would fall 93,000 positions short. After 9/11, 215,000 Americans requested Peace Corps applications for only 7,000 slots. Ted Kennedy wanted to pass the torch to all Americans – including millennials and boomers – before he died. Working across the aisle with his Republican friend for 34 years, Orrin Hatch, Sen. Kennedy called me and others into his office to envision what a “quantum leap” in community and national service might look like and help him make it a reality. In the last months of his life, Sen. Kennedy pushed through the Congress what became the Serve America Act in his name. It engages 250,000 Americans in full-time national service, tackling problems he cared about, like the high school dropout epidemic and poverty. The act fulfills his brother’s dream, authorizing a Bush-era program that together with the Peace Corps will deploy 100,000 Americans to serve abroad to tackle malaria, HIV/AIDS, and promote education and economic growth. As I was riding through rural Kentucky after the Serve America Act was signed into law and he was too ill to remain in Washington, Sen. Kennedy called me and said, “John, remember my brother talked about passing a torch to a new generation. Well, we’re really blow-torching this thing!” He laughed as a man who had done so much in life that he did not fear death. Sen. Kennedy lit a torch that gives every American the opportunity to do what he had done for nearly 50 years – serve his nation. Through the service that each of us can do, his dream lives on. John M. Bridgeland, a Republican from Cincinnati, worked with Sens. Edward Kennedy and Orrin Hatch for two years on the Serve America Act, Kennedy’s last major legislative accomplishment.