For the past few months, service has become the new “it” word.  The president called for a national day of service on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and more recently the GIVE and SERVE Acts passed with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.  The purpose of these bills focuses on increasing the number of Americans involved in service activities through programs like Americorps.  The President even reiterated his support during his Saturday morning weekly address.

In the big picture, this is great. As Americans we should be committed to giving back to our communities and working together for the better.  This was clearly displayed as hundreds of people worked together in North Dakota creating thousands of sandbags to try and keep the Red River from flooding.

But I feel all the positive energy around service has severely limited the conversation.

Yes, Americorpss is a great program. But in the meetings and dialogues I’ve had with people around Americorp, they act like it’s something that anyone can do.  Please.  While the amount of people participating in programs like Americorps is supposed to increase, there will not be an increase in the living stipend. This may shock people in two ways. One group might be shocked that Americorp volunteers get paid.  The other group is freaking out that the living stipend has not increased. First of all, if volunteers aren’t paid a basic stipend to cover food, clothing and shelter, then the are paying for it out of their own pockets. Very few people can afford to do that, especially in this economy.

The living stipend for the majority of Americorps volunteers is $11,800 per year.  Now $11,800 per year is already way below the federal poverty line, and what that looks like varies depending on where you live.  One of my friends in Washington state barely scrapped by and was forced to get food stamps to supplement her living.  Another friend in Washington, DC was forced to tap into her savings that was supposed to help her pay for graduate school.

So tell me. How many low-income people can afford to do an Americorps program? As a recent college grad, I had college loans to pay off.  And while there was an option to postpone them, they still needed to get paid at some point (especially the private loans which often times cannot be deferred).

The other part of the conversation that we tend to leave out is the type of work that is encouraged in volunteer programs.  In longer-term programs like Americorps, I’ve heard of jobs like becoming a counselor for at-risk youth, or doing health outreach to sex workers. My question is, why aren’t these well paying jobs to begin with?  Already the rates of unemployment are rising in this country and these Americorps jobs are often the most difficult and draining.  People should be paid well to do these jobs and stick with them in the future.  Are we possibly devaluing the work when there is no real salary attached to them?

Then there are the service opportunities that arise during various “Days of Service."

One of my closest friends was what I consider to be a victim of January’s “Day of Service.”  As a teacher in one of DC’s public schools, she was surprised to return to what can only be described as a classroom in chaos the Wednesday after Inauguration. Her posters were off the walls (and as a former teacher, DO NOT touch my posters.  We put in a lot of thought, effort, and time getting those up).  Example work that once hung on the walls were now ripped and in unusable form. School supplies already in shortage were missing.  But there was a half-ass layer of new paint on the walls and a note from George Washington students letting her know of their hard work.  And apparently a teacher who happened to be on campus during this “service” came into my friend’s classroom and yelled at the students to fix the paint job they had done the first time around because apparently it had been worse.

While some students may care and do a good job painting walls in low-income communities, clearly this is not the case for all. With service, it’s not supposed to be only about the act.  There should be some kind of emotion or feeling behind it.  A possible solution?  Hiring people from low-income communities to paint their children’s school walls or keep up their neighborhood parks.  I have a feeling that people who have jobs and are paid a living wage to work and keep their communities clean might do a better job.  And while I am only guessing, this could contribute to an overall positive impact on the community.

Don’t get me wrong.  Service should be part of American culture. But the type of service I think we need is more along the lines of long term mentoring and tutoring programs.  There should be a line drawn between service work and real jobs where people are paid real wages.  Like I heard at a conference a few years ago and try to think about in my work every day, "Never confuse charity with social justice." 

I’m not going to act like I have all the answers.  I just look forward to the day we can have a more balanced dialogue about service in this country.