Clinton praises youth service, addresses business community November 17, 2004
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City Year is a national community service program in which people ages 17 to 24 get a chance to be teachers, mentors and leaders to schoolchildren. The 40 volunteers will be spending the coming year working at several schools in the Little Rock School District.
The program started 16 years ago in Boston and was the inspiration for Clinton’s AmeriCorps citizen service program during his first term in office.
More than 330,000 youth have participated in City Year – 75,000 this year. Along with Little Rock, there are City Year programs in 14 other cities and a program is to begin next year in Johannesburg, South Africa.
“We should be doing this in every other place in the world that is divided,” Clinton told a crowd of more than 300, including many students. “The world is being torn asunder and terrorism is being fueled by people who say that our differences are more important than our common humanity.”
He went on to say he was tired of seeing maps dividing the country into blue states and red states and he hopes City Year will bring people in the United States and abroad together.
“We have to make a make a world with more partners and fewer enemies,” he said. “That’s what City Year, that’s what AmeriCorps is all about, more important than our common humanity.”
Clinton was welcomed at the podium by two City Year volunteers, Julie Wolf of Massachusetts, and Eddie Yates of Little Rock, a graduate of Central High.
Also attending the event was retired Gen. Wesley Clark of Little Rock, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination this year. Clark, who later was active in John Kerry’s presidential campaign, was the former NATO supreme commander during the 1999 bombing of Kosovo and peacekeeping efforts afterward.
The former president praised Clark for his years of military service.
“I have rarely met any person whom I regard more highly and whom I thought loved our country more or served it better,” Clinton said about Clark.
Clark said City Year is a way for people to get involved in the current world situation.
“We’re at war abroad. We’re facing a threat we’re not really able to pin down and go after. We’ve got men and women from our community serving in uniform abroad and so many people are asking what can they do to help.
“Well, I think the answer is right here,” Clark said, pointing to the 40 City Year Corps members. “And you, can see in these fine men and women in the red jackets. This is public service, this is helping America.”
