Corporation for National and Community Service Board Chairman and Former CEO Urge Service Stimulus

Excerpts from Column by STEPHEN GOLDSMITH and HARRIS WOFFORD:

The start of the holiday season brings anguish for many families across the country. More Americans are struggling to make ends meet. They will be in need of support and services just at the time when the nonprofits who can help meet those needs are facing precipitous drops in giving. Food banks' supplies are set to reach new lows. Yet this year we will see millions of citizens reach out in record numbers to assist those in need -- offering food, special care and compassion.

As the government seeks to deal with the economic crisis and relieve the distress felt by millions of families, we should not overlook the great American tradition of service. More than 60 million citizens every year are providing service to their neighbors and their communities.

Lawmakers who will soon consider a financial stimulus package should also consider a 'service stimulus.' Repairing the roads and bridges of our physical infrastructure is urgently needed, but we also need to expand our civic infrastructure dramatically.

President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to make service a central cause of his presidency. In his call to service outlining plans for a large expansion of citizen service, he said he would reach out to Republicans, Democrats and independents alike, young and old, and ask all of us for our service and active citizenship. 'We need your service, right now,' he said.

As two who support national and community service from different sides of the political aisle, we look to President Obama and Congress to shore up the civic infrastructure in order to help meet some of the most pressing human needs, build common cause, and strengthen the union's civic purpose. In each area of need, the limiting factor is not American goodwill but the ways and means of recruiting, training and deploying people who want to play a part in meeting critical community needs.

In the can-do civic spirit that is the true strength of America, let's not wait for the Congress and the new president to strengthen our civic infrastructure. In this holiday season, let's begin a new era by offering service on a scale not seen since World War II. And on Jan. 19, the day before the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States, let's honor Martin Luther King's day -- as Congress in 1994 directed us to do -- not as a day off, but as a day-on for citizen service.

Stephen Goldsmith is the chairman of the board of the Corporation for National and Community Service, th e federal agency that administers AmeriCorps and other national service programs. From 1992 to 1999 he served as the Republican mayor of Indianapolis. Harris Wofford, D-Pa., was U.S. senator from 1991 to 1995; he was CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service from 1995 to 2001.

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