 My name is Helene Gale and I am the President and CEO of CARE, but in this context I am a proud board member of New America, and so it is with great pleasure that I introduced this next panel on national service and the next generation. My real role is to introduce the moderator who is then going to introduce the rest of the panel, but let me just say a couple of words about why I'm so enthusiastic about this. I have a career that has spanned service from government to philanthropy to the not-for-profit and for-profit arena and you know I think service is something we all talk about a lot about and there's lots of different ways in which we can serve, but I think this panel is going to talk about it from a variety of different perspectives and not only about a particular type of service and some of the initiatives that are going on around service but also what does service mean to an individual? I always say that while I have been very pleased to be a servant in many ways and do public service in many ways it also serves and gives back as well and so as I think we talk about what does this mean as far as service what does it also mean in terms of what is it doing to develop us as a nation and our national character. So they're going to say a lot more about it but very enthusiastic about what I think will be an incredible panel and let me just introduce our moderator today who is Nicholas Thompson. Nicholas is the editor of the New Yorker.com where he oversees and manages the magazine's website. He is also a technology contributor to CBS and a co-founder of the Atavist, a software company and digital periodical that I think his first funder was actually one of his initial funders was Eric Schmidt. He's also the author of The Hawk and the Dove, a history of the Cold War which he wrote when he was a fellow for New America. I understand he is also the longest or one of the longest running fellows in New America. He obviously started at about the age of 13, 14 or 15 but he has had a long association with New America and has done an incredible amount of work during that time and since. So hand it off to Nicholas. Thank you. We have a great issue and we have an amazing panel. So we have Tulsi Gabbard. She is a representative, a Democratic representative come on stage from the second congressional district in Hawaii. She's one of the first two female combat veterans to serve in Congress and the first Hindu member. We have Stan McChrystal. He is a former four star general, obviously ran all of our military operations in Afghanistan, chair of the McChrystal group and chair of the Franklin project and he's also written a whole bunch of books including one that is coming out now. And then we have Paul Montero who is the director of America, AmeriCorps and before that director of America soon, soon at the end of this panel they will be one and the same. He's the director of AmeriCorps and before that he worked in the White House on outreach to all sorts of interesting organizations. So if national service is going to be solved it's going to be solved by a combination of politicians, activists, former military people. So here we are. Well let's get going. So national service. Most everybody in this room probably agrees with it. It's something New America has been in favor of for a long time but it's complicated. The politics are complicated. The politics have been persistent and persistent losses. I was sort of thinking about Governor Kasich when he was talking about victory in politics, calling everybody over Thanksgiving weekend, calling, calling and calling until he won. National service is one of those issues where they've been calling, calling, calling and not winning. So let's get going and by the end of this panel we'll figure out a strategy to win. So let's start with you Paul. National service. Two words. They seem simple. They're both complicated. What is service? Service to AmeriCorps and all of the Corporation for National Community Service programs is adding value to a community whether it's your own or another one. Many times our members are finding ways to help people at all different levels. Looking to find, be reconnected to the job market. Services using whatever talents or abilities or gifts you have to the benefit of others, whether they're your neighbors or not. And where do you draw the boundaries? I remember this, this was a debate. I was a Truman scholar and it was given to people who go into public service and I was there, they decided they, this was to find your graduate careers. And when I was there, they decided they were going to stop giving it to people who are going to go to law school because law wasn't service. Where do you draw the lines? What is not service? I think that where the principal motivation is something other besides sort of building up and bolstering the community sort of predicated on the idea about their rights, but their responsibilities, what they owe to the community they're a part of or the community they live in. I think where, where that service is motivated by something other than that desire to help, then it may be something else, a profit motive, X, Y and Z, but service takes many different forms. I think, again, where it's sort of the target of the activity or the target of the actions is either inward focused or driven by some sort of monetary benefit or some other, other benefits to the person themselves. That's when I think it's more focused on an individual as opposed to the broader community. It makes a lot of sense. Well, Stan, let's go to the other word, national. When you think about service and you think of it in a national context, what does that mean? I mean, military is national service. You're protecting the nation. But the other things that we talk about when we think about national service aren't national. AmeriCorps is, is it national? Like, what is, what is the national part of national service mean to you? And while you got to tell us a little bit about your Franklin project. Sure. I think first service, I agree with Paul. Service is the idea you're contributing to something bigger than yourself. I tie the idea of national service to the responsibility of citizenship. You may perform your service very locally. It may affect people in a very small area, but it is a commitment to the idea that citizenship is more than just a set of entitlements and a limited number of voting and paying taxes. So it's a more organic relationships. So in my view, what we are trying to do with national service is create the idea that for a period of your life and the Franklin project's goal is to create a service year for every young American to do a year of full time paid national service. The idea being that the work that they do would be a value, but the real payoff is the change you make in the people who do it. There's a tendency to, to want to say, well, we need more roads in parks or we'll have people do that. We can hire people for that if we want to. What we really are trying to do is create citizens who are going to vote at a higher rate, who are going to have a habit of service for the rest of their lives, who are going to feel as though they have a responsibility not to some inanimate thing of a nation, but to other, other citizens. So, so the exact proposal is to fund how many people doing and how many things? There are about four million young people in every cohort each year group and best case every young person sometime between the age of 18 and 28 would do a full year. Our near term goal is to get to one million and we're about 200,000 right now. And the idea, the concept is that military and civilian service are really two sides of the same coin. They are contributions and so we ought to honor and respect them the same, but we ought to create opportunities so that at least a million kids can do it because we believe that when you get to 25% of a year group, suddenly national service won't be something different. You'll hear it at the lunch table. You'll hear it at the table at home. Enough of your friends will do it. Well, that will start to be that cultural expectation. Wait, that's there's a super interesting point you just made, which is that military and civilian service should be treated the same. So should somebody who finishes AmeriCorps be able to use a VA hospital? Should they be given the same benefits that military veterans are given? In my opinion, we ought to look at all of the benefits that we do from financial to other things and we ought to to look at service so that we give it. Now there could be a certain if you do one year and one thing it might not be the same as doing more years and something else, but there ought to be a benefit, a respect and a benefit for everyone who does service. I believe strongly. Okay, Congressman Gabbard, do you agree with this this plan and also tell me what you think national service means to you? Yeah, I think when you look at both Paul and Stan's comments really about what is the meaning of service and and really what what does it mean to have servant leaders and why is it important in our society and the point that you brought up about the boundaries that there really are no boundaries that when we look at the actions that we take each of us in our different sectors, whether it's in business, in politics, in the military, in law enforcement, every single sector in journalism, it really does go to the motivation and how you will use your skills and your actions in a way that positively impacts other people and you see a difference when you see people or meet people or hear from people who have had that experience in their lives where they've dedicated a certain portion of their time and energy to make that positive impact on other people, you get a different perspective. But this is leading me back to the question of alliance again, so let me give you a specific example. Let's say I'm 21 years old, I really want to do national service, you know I just want to save the environment. I care about it so passionately that what I'm going to do is I'm going to go out there and I'm going to sink whaling ships, right? Is that okay? No, but why not? I mean it's it's outside of me, I'm out there protecting the whales and protecting the environment, you know where do we also causing harm to people? You know so I think there's a common sense element that has to be brought into the conversation here. Maybe whaling ship sinking is a little excessive, but let's say I'm going to u-lock myself in front of a bulldozer, in front of a forest. Well you know different people will take different forms of activism, right, to achieve their end goal and sometimes it is to spark the conversation. I think we saw a lot of this through the Occupy movement where people were really raising their voices and raising the conversation to say hey look there is a huge constituency of people here who really are not being heard and I think we've seen that also recently with a lot of the law enforcement issues that are being brought up, criminal justice reform issues that are being brought up. So keeping that focus on the motivation of how are you serving the greater good and making ultimately a positive impact. Let's take this question to maybe the other side of the local spectrum, Paul, something you worked on in the White House. Let's say I decide that I really want to do national service but it's all through my religion and I'm a Catholic or I'm and it involves I can only work with other Catholics because for whatever reason or I can only work with other members of this religion. How does that tie into national service and how does America deal with those issues? Well there's certainly a tie and I think one of the things that's made our country you know what it is is sort of Ben Franklin started the first volunteer organization in Philadelphia with the volunteer fire department. Since the beginning of the country that's sort of sense of mission and the sense of obligation to help the broader community and faith-based organizations have been at the front line of that since we started as a country and so what you're seeing now is this really interesting phenomena where established religious denominations for different reasons. You see membership declining and especially when you come into millennials. Choosing to live out their faith in a way that may be different from the way their parents did and service is one of the alternate routes that you see sort of really thriving. So as the institutional sort of membership declines you see the growth of these other service organizations motivated by religious belief and saying that whatever I believe whether it's I'm a Catholic or I'm Hindu or I'm a Muslim or I'm a secular humanist. I'm just a I want to be a moral person. You're finding a lot of the meat through service. The president started the campus interfaith challenge a few years ago just saying on a college campus all of these student groups set up by religious identity are serving. They're doing community service at a food bank cleaning up a river or park. Why not serve together as opposed to in your different silos and the sort of a bleakly come to the conversation about what do you believe what do I believe but really meeting through service so you would you directly give money to churches. No we faith based organizations focus on service we obviously they have the bright lines of we're not giving taxpayer money to proselytize we're not using taxpayer money to convert or spread any particular religious message. But you know it's an established sort of balance between the government and faith based organizations where it's not crossing any lines to have a soup kitchen with a cross on the wall that's not violating anything so Stan let me ask you a pretty core question here which is that this is going to work for me and everybody do it really should get everybody to it should be compulsory right. Oh yeah absolutely you know I grew up in a mandatory world but the reality is it's hard to sell people on a mandatory idea right now so what we are trying to do is we're trying to create a cultural expectation so that we believe that if we make it voluntary but expected that at a certain point we can get enough peer pressure societal pressure norms and build in some incentives for people things like there's an organization or a qualification we've done called employers for national service and what we've done got 190 companies to sign up and they are stating that they value national service so if young people who are want to serve but then they also know that there's going to be some advantage for them in getting a job or getting into a university then we're reinforcing ideas that they already have but to really make it national to really make it something that brings the country together should be something that everybody does right shouldn't it be shouldn't we force every group to do it force and give incentives. I think when you use the word force maybe force is the wrong word service. Imprison anybody who doesn't. When you look at you know having an attitude of service when you look at people who are exhibiting service servant leadership qualities it goes to your motivation and really what's in your heart so I think when you're talking about forced service to me it's a little bit of an oxymoron which goes to what Stan's talking about is you you it does go to a culture change and it takes time and it takes investment and it takes buy-in not just government is forcing you you must do this because that frankly to me would not achieve the outcome that we're hoping for but it could be a requirement like the military used to be a requirement. Paul do you let's you do believe in compulsory national service? You know I think the challenge now is that even with all of our programs all American programs Senior Corps you have so many folks that want to serve we just don't have enough spots for them we have far more applications than we have spots that's why it's great to see Franklin project and others sort of creating pathways for people who want to serve sort of the world we live in right now is there's certainly demand there's not enough opportunities to sort of do that and so our 80,000 members across the country certainly do that but for the many that don't make it in where do they go and really creating opportunities for folks who have raised their hand and say I want to serve some way what opportunities are there for them so I as opposed to the conversation about pushing people to do anything I think where we are right now is a lot of people are raising their hands we just need more pathways for them to serve. So let's say we could come up with this is a question for any of you we could come up with a wish list of all the things we could do to bring people in the national service the incentive so you're obviously starting a database to match people with the right jobs you've talked about college credit college grants there's been talked about hiring preferences for people who complete this sort of the same level of respect you get in society if you join the military what are some of the other things on the wish list? I think society can do it when a young person wants to run for congress society can ask where did you serve what did you do and if there's a deafening silence then I think that creates a pressure I think there are a number of informal things expectations that we can create we can demand of ourselves and demand of each other that are pretty powerful. And I think the employers the national service piece is showing how states like Virginia and Montana and others how cities like Philadelphia are saying people that serve in national service programs have the criteria that the skill set the attitude the ability to work with folks different from themselves that we value in our organization companies like Disney and Comcast and others saying that's exactly the type of person we want in our company or nonprofit or in our state government so you already start to see people glomming on to this idea that there's a value there's a practical value to the experience of national service that we want to seize and to the benefit of our respective organization besides increasing funding for AmeriCorps are there things up for debate in congress that could draw more people in or help meet the supply of these jobs meet the demand. I think more funding in congress for anything is a tough conversation to have but as we look to how we're investing in our future AmeriCorps is a great example there are others that I think we have to look at how we're leveraging whatever government resources are put out there whether it's through specific agencies or otherwise with private sector investment you know which has to be part of that is as you're changing this culture and the expectation from individuals I think also there can be kind of a brand of service that can be attached to whether it's small businesses educational institutions large corporations who are really invested and bought into this. So in preparation for this panel I thought what did I do the year after college so what I did the year after college is I got hired at a really good corporate job and got fired on the first day then I went to Africa and got kidnapped and then I became a street musician in New York so I didn't do anything for anybody it was pretty useless right but actually set of pretty valuable experiences how much do you worry that you know really creating cultural expectation that people go into City Year in AmeriCorps that you're taking away for a lot of people a sort of period of experimentation which actually is also a really good moment for becoming an adult. Yeah I would challenge that I would say that whether it's before college or before a job that they're not going to go to university or after that the experience of going to work in City Year or AmeriCorps somewhere working in a school in New Orleans or somewhere else is probably a life experience that's hard to compete with the traditional travel around gap year or whatever. I think it's just that much richer and the fact that you would interact with people not from your zip code not from your background I got kidnapped I was definitely interacting with digress. Yeah it probably is more critical than anything else that we give people this chance to step away from what they're going to do. I teach now and one of the great things problems I find is as young people get in their graduation there's this implied pressure to get into the workforce and not to fall a step behind not to turn down a job offer from a prestigious company because it might not be there next year and that's the kind of thing with employers of national service we want them to guarantee if Goldman Sachs gives a young person at Yale that I teach and offer what we'd like them to do is say yep we'll hire you and we'll see you 12 months from now as soon as you finish your national service but your job is guaranteed as long as you finish. We've got cultural expectations to get in the race and hurry and not fall behind and then I'd also remind you that the vast majority of young Americans can't take a gap year. They can't afford it and so they've got to get on to life so giving them a fully paid opportunity for a year allows them to have this kind of enriching experience and then going to whatever they're going to do. Would you also mandate that somebody who's hired at Goldman Sachs who works there a couple years but hasn't yet turned 28 has the opportunity to step out for a year and then come back? I would like if they had not done service I would very much like to see that and I would think that very open-minded employers that can afford it would give that opportunity because they're going to get back a better person. Tufts has implemented this one plus four program where you apply to Tufts and your first year you do service and the next four you do regular education. They are banking that those young people that do that are going to come in as much better freshmen and I think that's absolutely right. If I had done a year anywhere before I went to West Point I would have been a better cadet. I could not have been a worse cadet. Well that's one of the ways we're growing is sort of the public private partnership like companies like Citi you know Citi has through their foundation that's our largest partnership where we have hundreds of vistas working on financial literacy and using Citi employees as mentors with a lot of these young people and same with Google and Google sort of our code core Google and Boys and Girls Club sort of helping low-income children learn how the basics of coding and using Google employees as some of the mentors instructors. So you're seeing organizations companies saying there's actually a value to providing a pathway for our employees they come back they're invested in the mission they're productive and they enjoy service. So last night I also went through quotes that different presidents have said about national service. So Bill Clinton a hundred day in office national service will mark the start of a new era for America in which every citizen every one of you can become an agent of change. John McCain in 2001 this is how a free society remains free and achieves greatness national service is a crucial means of making our patriotism real to the benefit of ourselves in our country George W. Bush my call tonight is for every American commit at least two years 4,000 hours over the rest of your lifetime for the service of your neighbors in your nation Barack Obama to in a similar degree why haven't we had this happen well I I would argue it's pretty clear what what's happened in America is we're like a deer caught in the headlines we look at every problem now and we stare at we say it's too high too dark too wide too expensive too something we can't do it I would argue that we couldn't build the boulder dam now we couldn't do the interstate highway system that's been so valuable for us because every big problem looks too difficult too daunting there'd be no Panama Canal if we had to start it now and so what we need to ask is just a binary question has citizenship deteriorated in America and I think the answer is yes would national service improve that demonstrably and I of course think yes then the answer is not whether we do it it's how and I think that we let ourselves sort of get treated by Chihuahua's own this we have really got to just make this is a fundamental big issue big question a big idea it's not an incremental thing 5,000 more slots for this it's a cultural change in America that America's got to stand up and say we've got to fix it and this is the moment isn't it right we're presidential campaigns that's where we debate these things so how do we get this into the presidential campaign by doing more things like this by increasing increasing the accountability not only asking the questions of college students but asking the questions of our country's leaders both for themselves and their own experiences but also what their actions and their plans would be to do this because as as you mentioned Stan this isn't about how much good one person can do in a year but really how that experience changes that individual going forward I I met recently with a someone who lives in Hawaii who had participated in his life he decided to continue teaching but has continued to be a great advocate in mentorship and gathering more people getting more people into that program because without it he would have gone down a completely different path is this the right moment should we be thinking big ideas or should we be focusing on for example the fact that congressman keeps cutting America's budget to zero and then the Senate keeps saving it and now the Senate has full tans so is this a moment where we need to prevent bad things from happening or a moment to push for big things I think this is the moment to push for big things and the program I run Vista is turning 50 this year and the flipside turning 50 as I was saying backstage as you're 50 years old and how have you changed as the country's changed since 1965 and I think that it's it's a moment to sort of take stock of you know for the 190,000 people that have served in Vista over the course of 50 years the common refraining here whether it's Senator Rockefeller who just retired or Gwen Moore in the Congress sort of they served as a Vista and never stopped serving it's a transformative experience and in Vista you're paid a stipend that's tied to the poverty line so you you basically commit to living in poverty for one year but even with that it was one of the best years of their entire life and it set them on a pathway that they never really deviated from they just found other ways to serve and so why not ask that question about how do you create other pathways knowing it isn't your sacrifice but it transforms your whole outlook on yourself and the community but what can be done with Congress why does Congress keep voting to defund you? I think that you know I got to be careful about answering that question Congress will gather here Congress will be here but I think to some degree there is a moment where folks are arguing about what is the proper role of government and it's a fair you know obviously question to ask I think that to some degree we're caught up in that but I like to tell every person that I meet you know show me another government program and I'm just for AmeriCorps Vista you give us 94 million dollars every year for about 7,500 vistas in one fiscal year they generate 170 million dollars for the nonprofits they serve it you serve in writing grants doing fundraising it's a great leveraging of the federal dollar to the sector you say should be carrying the load and so showing the return on the investment this is a great leveraging of a federal investment that works to the benefit of communities and so it's a program that I think more should love if they knew sort of the the return on the investment that we get but I think you know I think it goes to some larger issues I think that's a very good one it goes to a larger issue of take your pick on the issue that's before Congress the response very often comes to well what do we have to do just to get us to the next year what do we have to do just to get us to the next six months the the least minimum so if you're talking about visionary ideas big ideas investing in the future unfortunately there's very little of that happening in Congress period on any issue I think the second thing that has to do with that bigger problem but has to do with what you're talking about here is there is no full complete government solution to this and government should not be the answer to this question of service or everything and if we expect government to change if we expect elected officials to be responsive to their constituencies their constituencies have to be calling for this they have to say this is the impact that these programs are making in our community we are expecting for there to be opportunities these pathways international service and there has to be that return on investment that's proven and shown whether it's through nonprofits through the private sector where you're showing if you're paying 5,000 taxpayer dollars for something you're leveraging this many times return for that investment all right Congress may not be the place for big ideas big questions and forward thinking but a new America lunch is so every hi says this is this is a wonderful stuff and particularly the framing of responsible citizenship my question is what about elders we spent the morning talking about how boom the elder boom retiring baby boomers many of whom will have 10 to 15 years of active life still ahead of them and is there a role for someone who didn't couldn't afford to do service beforehand to do a year of service and generational interaction great question yeah I think it's a great question memory there is a rule for elders but the the project the Franklin project is focused on young people because what we're trying to do is produce people who in later years will do that reflexively when they retired they'll do it and they'll volunteer what we're trying to do is affect the concept of citizenship during that critical window between 18 and 28 when most people have the freedom they don't yet have mortgage they don't have a dog and that sort of thing so we're allowing them to do things during that period but but clearly I think that would be part of the product getting them into pre-dog years very importantly fun I think I probably have a couple questions so first and Paul you alluded to it a little bit in one of your comments about this next generation is the generation that wants to do their own thing and so you know we talk a lot about entrepreneurship some people think entrepreneurship are almost at opposite ends of the spectrum you're talking about going out and doing for others and doing something oftentimes that's involved with an ongoing organization so in your any of you in in your thinking about this and talking to young people has that been a challenge the getting people to think not about what I'm going to do and the organization I'm going to build but to be part of existing organizations and the second one you know we think about this is the future in the next generation and national service in an ever more global world should we be thinking about service beyond our borders peace core as well as Vista so you know how how should we be thinking about that too as we we try to change the character of our nation and thinking more globally so either though any of you for either of those yeah I'd love to jump in on that one I think and when I use this sort of generation of service I do include the sort of the 10,000 I think it is baby boomers that are retiring every day they can only play so much golf or paint so much they have they still have a sense of mission they want to serve I think they would be perfect members for our program and for those that are maybe on the early side of their career thinking about being a social entrepreneur whatever whatever else I think considered for Vista you're embedded in a nonprofit organization for one year seeing what it takes to grow it to sustain it to bolster its capacity to serve more people if you're thinking about building your own nonprofit one day it's to me school for social entrepreneurs and seeing the way that we take a good model and scale it up in a sustainable way so that when the Vista leaves that nonprofit can continue to grow I think that we're looking to build opportunities with our senior core colleagues saying for the folks that still have a lot left to give a whole sort of body of work they're sitting on as retirees that you can you know sort of share with a younger person maybe coming out of college there's so many opportunities for us to work together what about expanding beyond our borders? I would say that beyond our borders is something that the Franklin project includes already the Peace Corps is one of our partners in it I think the concept of service wherever you do it you know national sense seems to limit it because in fact it's local it's national and it's international the idea again is what it does for that young person when they're through with it Peace Corps volunteers look what they do in society after that experience so we very much believe it can be sort of anywhere as long as it's focused on something that expands your sense other questions in the room yes please I'm a former Peace Corps volunteer so I get the service thing and now I'm a fed this morning I was at the first meeting of an interagency group the Broadband Opportunity Council and we're looking at promoting Broadband adoption which I think everybody agrees is is critical for us as a society a nation to advance I'm familiar with Vista volunteers in Boston Vista volunteers in Minneapolis doing things on digital literacy digital inclusion but does AmeriCorps Vista have a national program where you know you might focus it on Broadband adoption and digital literacy training and and do sort of a national a few weeks ago and that's a challenge where many of their I was talking to someone from the Library Commission and most libraries in the state of Mississippi are on dial up and some rural areas there is no connection and sort of looking to to build a system there the thing about Vista sort of based on the Peace Corps model we were established as the domestic version of the Peace Corps sort of it's finding what does the local community say it needs and then putting in the Vista human capital to run with that as opposed to imposing sort of our national blueprint on this is the answer to your problems in any town USA which I think is one of the reasons we have we've had the success the programs had in 50 years it's sort of the community knows what it it needs it's it doesn't need the sort of federal government coming in and saying this is sort of the blueprint so it's sorry to answer your question yes we do have projects focus on that trying to move into the sort of technology space given the world is very different than it was in 1965 and that's one area that can really provide access and opportunity for low-income young people to learn more you know online education x y and z all right we've time for a couple more questions right here in the front please should probably wait for the mic for the services of our web viewers one of the things you talk about is public service but after the fact not that many people realize that you're teaching a class up at Yale on leadership Adam McRaven now is the chancellor at the University of Texas a former SOCOM Commander at the old former SOCOM Commander is teaching a class at Columbia Adel Stravitis the former Sackyer is teaching a class at at at Tufts in terms of what that brings to the table of your roles influence on students that you have in your classes how do you see that as a multiplier of supporting national service I think anything you can do to expose young people to the concept of service is really powerful you know for many years I teach at Yale for many years Yale because of their opinion on the Vietnam War didn't have ROTC and then because of Don't Ask Don't Tell didn't have it for about 40 years and so there was a very tiny representation of Yale graduates in the military I had met one in my entire Army career since I've been up there ROTC's come not because of me but ROTC has come back we're starting to see people go the young man who a Yale graduate who worked with me for two and a half years might writing with my wife and I for a good percentage of that then at 28 years old after having been exposed to the culture of it he enlisted and he's now a specialist at E4 in Second Ranger Battalion so when you are exposed to people who have served and the concept of service it is it's contagious and so I think that whenever we can get people who've served in any in any sense back into places where people are making those decisions into schools into elementary schools into everything and around dinner tables then I think you can do it I went into the army because my father and grandfather had not because I wanted to serve just seemed like the thing in the back hi my question actually speaks to what the previous gentlemen just spoke on and what you just responded to as far as exposure and so I wanted to find out do you all have kind of a revved up initiative like a preparatory initiative for the school system and that maybe the guidance counselors can you know get more acclimated to the idea of serving and so when you do have that rare student every now and then that comes and says you know I think I want to serve that guidance counselor is equipped with the resources to give to them so that they're able to get their families prepared and you know you're not shocking your mom and dad by saying hey when I graduate high school I still want to go to college but I also want to serve I want to volunteer so that's my question for our program this used to have on campus recruiting that sort of a victim I think of budget realities and we no longer have them we work with our colleagues at peace corps sort of piggyback off of their outreach funny I just spoke at my high school this week at their career day I've been at a high school for many years I people wonder about exactly how old I am but I went back for career day and the guidance counselors had never heard of AmeriCorp they had never heard of it they've heard of our grantees they've heard of Teach for America they've heard of Habitat for Humanity they've heard of Catholic Charities they've haven't so much heard of AmeriCorp and so we're looking obviously digital is one way to get the word out but again there are many parts of the country where folks are just not online or can't get online or don't have a smartphone and that's a tougher nut to crack but we're actually looking at how we can steer more effort to focus on that question because if if they never heard of it you know it's a non-starter so that is a problem I think we need to do that I also would would even take a step further right now you can go to an army or an Air Force or Navy or whatever you ought to go to one recruiting center that does everything from AmeriCorps Peace Corps the Army Navy all of those so that when a young person walks in because only about a third of young people in America are qualified to enlist in the military for physical or other reasons but everybody ought to be able to there ought to be a digital version but also a physical version you go in and if you don't like the look of one thing there are other options right there almost like a supermarket where you shop plus it would be vastly more efficient I mean we could do all of the things of automation and whatnot that would just make it really really effective and we need to get over some of these siloed efforts at things like this last question up here in the front in Europe they have been for about 20 years a similar program to what you describe and in its regional version it had something very interesting that was after the 12 months you spend in that case abroad you could be getting some seed money which was not too little at the time to create your own project and do you have anything like this because that would multiply the effect enormously thank you well I mean for AmeriCorps obviously the sort of cared at the end of your year of service is the Segal Education Award and many of our members attracts the Pell Grant so it's about $5,600 you can use to further your education pay off a loan or a cash version of it a little less to sort of make that next move in life many times our members are hired by the nonprofits they served in and for Vista just like Peace Corps you have non-competitive eligibility it's sort of you're considered a federal employee for the purposes of hiring so many times it's a pathway into federal service so there there are benefits of that sort and we have many nonprofit sponsors again we they refer to Vista as the seed capital because we help scale and as we celebrating 50 years we look back at so many nonprofits that can say we wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for the seed capital that Vista was at the beginning of it so and then the benefits of sort of a health benefit of education award and things like that all right thank you very much thank you to a fantastic panel with big ideas and they've all all people who have committed their lives to this idea so delighted to be on stage with all of you it was an honor thank you