Just cause

Washington Monthly, May, 2003

Here in El Paso, Texas, we too are wondering what happened to President Bush's pledge to expand national service ("What Ever Happened to National Service?" by Richard Just, March). Our Ameri-Corps program had a January 2003 start date--we have yet to enroll members. We were caught in the middle of the freeze on Ameri-Corps member enrollment and still haven't been told if indeed we will be able to enroll members and begin providing services to address the needs of hundreds of youth in our community.

SANDRA BRAHAM
El Paso, Texas

I am proud to be able to address the question Richard Just poses. National service--or at least participation in service nationally--is alive and well with National Student Partnerships (NSP), where university student volunteers run drop-in centers in nine cities around the country, helping disadvantaged residents gain access to critical employment, social, and human services within their community. Since 1998, the organization has grown from the founders' ambitious idea--recruiting Yale University students to help residents of the impoverished New Haven community--into a national movement of nine fully functioning, all-student-volunteer run local offices, where volunteers have helped hundreds of clients create resumes, perform employment searches, identify temporary and permanent housing situations, and apply for health or daycare.

NSP will celebrate its five-year anniversary next fall by expanding to five new sites within the year. None of this would be possible without the energy, leadership, and dedication of our student volunteers, who certainly reveal the true "spirit" of national service, and contribute to the creation of our nation's culture of service--with or without the legislative commitment from Washington.

ROBERT SCOTT BANASZAK
Communications Director
National Student Partnerships
Washington, D.C.