Community service requires heart

It would be too much of an understatement to simply say that community service is a good thing. The power of individual civic action, undertaken in the spirit of philanthropy and in the hope of improving some part of the world, is inestimable.

Nowhere has this been more apparent than in past and current Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, as FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency, or "Failure to Effectively Manage Anything" as it has been nicknamed by the disillusioned) has proven inefficient at best and useless at worst, and government aid has largely petered out into broken promises and lethargic bureaucracy. Ask anyone in New Orleans or Biloxi, and they will tell you that volunteers are the main force of outside support behind community reconstruction. The disaster seemed to especially touch a nerve in the younger generation-ours. At the time of the report, 18 million 18- to 28-year-olds had donated to or volunteered in Katrina relief and recovery, and over 10,000 college students had sacrificed their spring breaks to volunteer in the Gulf region.

Tech itself is no stranger to service but has been an active leader in the philanthropic arena. In response to Hurricane Katrina, students and student-led organizations have been sending volunteer teams to disaster-stricken areas continuously over the last two years. However, the Gulf Coast is far from being the only place where Tech students are making a difference.

This week's Focus section highlights community service on campus and spring break trips that students have taken all over the country and all over the world to help the less fortunate. That, combined with the plethora of volunteer opportunities available on campus, makes it clear that the spirit of service is alive and well among Tech students.

Interest and action in service has generally increased in America, with the number of recorded volunteers jumping from 59.8 million in 2002 to 65.4 million in 2005, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service. However, awards and impressive statistics aside, it is still action that comes from the heart that matters, and increasingly, that is just what seems to be missing from service-heart.

Last week, the New York Times published the community service article "A better society? Or a better resume?," the title of which seems to perfectly capture the possible drying up of a true humanitarian impulse and the movement towards a more compulsory service. The article focused on the unspoken mandate that high school students need to show community service on their college applications, and some philanthropic endeavors have become window-dressing for resumes rather than real efforts to improve and build a community.

It would probably not be too much of a stretch to see this trend extending beyond the realm of high school applications. How often have a celebrity's philanthropic actions been suspected of having less than the best intentions and being more of a publicity stunt? Or a business giant's much-touted commitment to service been called a public relations ploy to woo more investors into its pocket and to quiet community outcry against another commercial eyesore? It seems that public image and self-promotion are the real concerns, and service is only a convenient means to those ends.

Some would undoubtedly argue that any service, even if undertaken for the wrong reasons, is still a step in the right direction. That may be true, but I am of the mind that any act of volunteerism, if missing true passion and dedication, will not make much of a difference in the end.

This is not to say that there are not people out there, as well as students on campus, who genuinely care about and are committed to any number of good causes. The tremendous support that volunteers are bringing to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts is one example of where heartfelt service is having an impact-nobody dons face masks and hazmat suits for hours of exhausting work in smelly, water-logged enclosures if they're not dedicated, and the results of their service can be seen most clearly not in annual reports, but in the grateful faces of Katrina victims.

However, I have little patience or sympathy for anyone trying to polish up a resume with a few lines of empty service. In an interview for the aforementioned New York Times article, a guidance counselor named Scott White described the most giving man he knew: "He devoted his life to others and demanded no attention. That's community service." And that's the kind of service I hope to see more of.