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Volunteers: The Heartbeat of America
| Article
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16556 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
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11 / 1989 |
2,240 Words |
| Author
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Steve Kaplan
Steve Kaplan is a widely published free-lance writer living in
St. Paul, Minnesota, who is also a contributing editor of St.
Paul Magazine. |
Alec Aspinwall is out on the streets of New York City again, serving sandwiches and hot chocolate to two young girls, not yet fourteen years old, already veterans of the street. George Ewing is across the country in Minnesota, but his heart is in India, where undernourished children are eating tasty cookies made of high-protein soy, cookies that are the product of George's--and his fellow professionals'--commitment to feeding the hungry.
Both Aspinwall and Ewing have decided that volunteerism is the best way to realize their vision of a better world. In a world seemingly gone mad with avarice, the American people's generosity remains extraordinary. Giving time, creativity, and money to worthy organizations and individuals has long been part of the American character.
Today, more than twenty-one million Americans volunteer almost five hours a week of their time, according to a 1988 Gallup Poll commissioned by Independent Sector, a nonprofit organization that studies charitable efforts in the United States. The positive effects of the volunteer work cannot, of course, be quantified, but the numbers are mind-boggling. Americans volunteer about 14.9 billion hours a year to formal charities, equaling the work of almost eight and three-quarters million full-time employees. It would take $150 billion to replace the volunteer efforts with paid labor.
No dollar figure can explain why Aspinwall drives a beat-up Chevy van in the streets of one of America's worst neighborhoods. Some of his old friends might well be shocked. Just two years ago he was driving a fancy car and bringing home huge paychecks from his job with a San Francisco
... (1992 of 13233 Characters)
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