For Immediate Release August 6, 1997

Media coverage of this summer’s Volunteer Summit in Philadelphia said that political hatchets were "checked at the door." The big names donned work clothes to usher in a renewal of volunteerism in America. President Clinton, despite his knee injury, hobbled over to paint a graffitied wall. Potential political adversaries Colin Powell and Al Gore stood shoulder-to-shoulder to repair slummed out buildings. And the question of the day was "What will YOU do to help make America better?"

The Summit on Volunteerism emphasized helping children. It would seem, however, that volunteering to help a child’s parent—particularly a welfare parent—could also make a big difference in our culture. A child could reap great benefit if he could see his parents literate and working to support the family.

In this time of evolving welfare reform in Colorado, it would seem especially important to link volunteers to parents for literacy and work.

President Clinton is raising a banner for Americans to help children read and feel valued, and well he should. The world is available to the child who can read and has self-esteem because it is warranted. But President Clinton and his Summit volunteers should not slight the parents of American children—parents fighting to get out of poverty by going to work.

The ability to communicate value to a child is compromised when the parent does not possess self-esteem born of self-sufficiency. And parents who cannot read a book to their child are often the ones who are supported by a welfare check. There are many thousands of our fellow Coloradoans in this predicament.

Many welfare recipients cannot fill out an employment application for even an entry-level job. Of those who can at least get through the application process, many cannot keep the job because they lack basic work skills (e.g., getting to work everyday, on time, dressed appropriately). For those trying to get off welfare, hope for advancement beyond the low income they have always known is marginal if they lack solid reading skills.

The government has tried for decades to devise "just the right program" that can help welfare recipients go to work. There are over 100 (recently consolidated from 163) federal workforce training and education programs, of which JPTA (Jobs Partnership Training Act) is the largest.

Dr. John Heckman, University of Chicago professor, and member of an independent team, who evaluated federal workforce training programs, concluded that practically speaking, workforce training and education programs often fail.

How realistic is the prospect for long term self-sufficiency for people who cannot read or do not have the skills necessary to find transportation to work? And what makes us think that continued dependence on government programs to enhance that self-sufficiency will produce significantly different results than it has in the past?

Colorado is to be commended for bringing its welfare caseload down substantially. But now comes the really tough part—long term self-sufficiency for the remaining, more difficult long-term welfare "clients." And that won’t happen by continuing to define "compassion" by connecting it only to government programs.

Like other states, Colorado stands on the edge of a "great new adventure"—helping welfare reform work by choosing to volunteer. Help a welfare parent learn to read or to acquire the soft job skills necessary to enter and stay in the labor force. These parents are not aliens, but neighbors needing constructive help. Help that empowers people to help themselves comes from individuals instead of a government program. Neighbors helping their neighbors.

The success of those big commitments depends on individual Colorado citizens. The Volunteer Summit encouraged each of us to do something as individuals. And so, Compassion in Colorado should mean citizen participation in true welfare reform.

True reform happens when we change the way we think about compassion, as well as the way we finance it. Volunteers—unlegislated and not mandated—could make a significant difference in long term self-sufficiency for all Colorado citizens.

This article, from the Independence Institute staff, fellows and research network, is offered for your use at no charge. Independence Feature Syndicate articles are published for educational purposes only, and the authors speak for themselves. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily representing the views of the Independence Institute or as an attempt to influence any election or legislative action.
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