2:46 P.M. EDT
MRS. CLINTON: We are so happy to be here with all of you to
celebrate service, and particularly to thank all of the AmeriCorps volunteers
who have become partners with the teachers and parents and students of this
school.
As we have seen over the past several years, ever since the
President started AmeriCorps, it literally can change lives. And as we heard
from Tiffany and Darryl, it has changed the lives of students here at this
school. And I am delighted that as we gather in Philadelphia to celebrate
service we are celebrating AmeriCorps, Youth Build, and the National Security
and Community Corps. (Applause.)
As the President said earlier today, there are many ways to
serve. And I know that many of you in this school have found ways to serve,
to be helpful to your family, your neighbors, your friends. And AmeriCorps
gives us a good example of what service is today on the front lines, working
with people like the students here. And the person who made AmeriCorps
possible, who believes that the vast majority of the young people in America
are good, decent, hard-working young people who are doing the best we can is
the President of the United States, whom I would like to introduce to you now.
(Applause.)
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you very much. I am so
pleased to be here. Thank you for making me feel so welcome. I want to say
to all of you, I have looked forward to coming to this school since I knew I
was coming to Philadelphia, because I knew when I came here the people who
come with me, including the press corps, would see what we're talking about
when we talk about service. And we say that everyone can serve, everyone can
make a difference. And if all young people serve we can turn this country
around and put it in the right direction for every single child in America.
(Applause.)
I want to thank so many people. I thank your principal, John
Krauss; the superintendent and my long-time friend, David Hornbeck. And thank
you, Harris Wofford, for doing a wonderful job with the Corporation for
National Service. (Applause.) I kind of hated to hear David Hornbeck say we
had more AmeriCorps volunteers in the Philadelphia schools than anywhere else
because now somebody will think that he was doing the home folks a little home
cooking. (Laughter.) But I'm glad you're here. And you ought to be here in
Philadelphia, where our country got started.
I want to thank the young AmeriCorps volunteers I
just saw inside who work with you, Phil -- Antoine Jackson and
William McBride. I saw them in the school there. (Applause.)
I'd like to thank your wonderful Congressman, Tom Foglietta, and
Congressman Don Payne from New Jersey and Congressman Sam Ford
who came all the way from California to be here with us today.
We're glad to see them. (Applause.)
I'd like to thank Latifa Beard (phonetic) and the
other students here at the Student Council -- the student body --
who gave Hillary and me the gifts. And I'd like to say that I
thought Tiffany and Darryl did a very good job introducing the
First Lady, didn't you? (Applause.)
And, finally, I'd like to thank Jahi Davis for
speaking on behalf of all the AmeriCorps volunteers. He helped
me with the President's Service Awards last night and he said
what he had to say today better than I ever could.
I just want to say to all of you that when I ran for
President for the first time, starting now more than five years
ago, I had a dream that I could give young people in this country
a chance to serve in their communities, to help children, to make
places safer, to make the schools work better, to deal with the
health problems and the worries and the fears of our children and
build up their hopes, and at the same time earn a little money
for a college education. That's how AmeriCorps was born.
I really dreamed that someday I could walk into a
school like Nebinger Elementary and see what I saw today -- two
young people tutoring five-year-olds, talking to them about their
lives and their future. One of the young men actually dropped
out of high school before joining AmeriCorps, but now, because of
AmeriCorps, he wants to be able to help young people from now on
and to go on with his own education. We learn that by giving and
serving other people, we're actually helping ourselves.
I told somebody the other day that if we could get
everybody in America to serve, we'd have the happiest country on
Earth, and people would see that service is selfish. Did you
ever see an unhappy person who was really helping somebody else?
Aren't you all happier because you're in Youth Build, because
you're in the National School and Community Corps? (Applause.)
And that's what the Presidents and General Powell
and others have come together to do here in Philadelphia at this
President's Summit of Service. We want to try to help guarantee
that our children have a better future. And what I want to do is
to challenge every young person in America to serve -- as a
volunteer or as a full-time community service person.
Let me tell you, since AmeriCorps opened its door
just four years ago, we've had 50,000 young people and some not
so young -- 50,000 serve in communities the way these young
AmeriCorps volunteers are today. And it's making a difference
for America's future. (Applause.) More importantly, the average
AmeriCorps volunteer helps to generate another 12 part-time
volunteers who come along and help. That's what makes America
strong.
And what I asked America to do today was to support
me in making it possible for many more young people to serve,
like Jahi and the other AmeriCorps volunteers have done, because
I found out that here in Philadelphia there's another movement
going on spearheaded by a minister whose a friend of mine named
Tony Campolo. He's going around to churches and saying, you
ought to support young people the way AmeriCorps support young
people and pay for them to have living expenses so they can serve
a year in community service work.
Today, I said, if those young people do that through
their churches or their synagogues or their mosques, through
their community organizations, we will make sure, number one, if
they're in college and they've got a student loan that they don't
have to pay any interest on the student loan during the year that
they're working and no interest builds up. (Applause.)
And, number two, if they're willing to go out and
meet the same standard of hard work and long hours that the
AmeriCorps volunteers meet, they will also become eligible for
the scholarship. That could bring 50,000 more young people into
the kind of community service we see with Youth Build and with
the National School and Community Corps. (Applause.)
And, finally, let me say, you know what the project
was that kids were working on in the class I just visited? Every
one of them was talking about how they like to serve. Every one
of those young children had to say, I like to help, I like to do
something, and then draw a picture of what they like to do. No
one is too young to serve. No one is too old to serve.
We are the most diverse country in the world with a
big democracy. We have people from all different races, all
different ethnic groups, all different religions. But when we
live together and work together and reach across the lines that
divide us, we are the most interesting, the most powerful, the
most vital country in human history. If we serve, that's the
kind of country we'll be in the 21st century for all these
children. That's my promise to you and I want it to be your
promise to yourselves.
God bless you and keep it up. (Applause.)
