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A Statement from Teddy Gross, Executive Director of Common Cents, Responding to Mayor Bloomberg's Challenge to Involve all New Yorkers in Service Below are two ideas that have the potential to actively involve all New Yorkers in thoughtful service. Both are drawn from two decades of experience at Common Cents, where we’ve concentrated on New Yorkers in their first ten years of school, and have built a meaningful and lasting service program for all of them. IDEA ONE: THE BIG SERVE 1. An umbrella concept with a name that could travel. Since New York is a world class brand its “call to service” should be no less so. The Big Read is a successful program that has taken some cities by storm; people in all walks of life read the same classic book at the same time and discuss it in book clubs, classrooms, and on the media. Why not launch a campaign called The Big Serve? The name captures the concept that everyone counts, and, like the Big Apple, is very NY, NY. It’s fresh, simple, and new. Who can participate in The Big Serve? Everyone. What can we do in The Big Serve? Everything! 2. A call for service that is meaningful and lasting. To project a meaningful and lasting campaign effectively from City Hall to the city, I see three critical design elements that should be worked into the model.
New York City can already boast the longest running and most successful children's citizenship program in the country. The Penny Harvest started in one New York school 18 years ago and now operates in 850 NYC schools. Each school has a trained Penny Harvest Coach, equipped with curriculum, tools, and a technical assistance provider; and trained in service-learning. The teachers in turn support 10,000 student leaders, who meet in small student groups in each school. The group’s main task is to encourage the student body, and the larger school community to take part in philanthropy and community service all year long. I propose the Mayor challenge children to double their service project this spring and double their Penny Harvest next year. We can support additional schools with modest increases in resources, and as part of a citywide call to service that recognizes their value, I believe students will enthusiastically respond and double the number of service projects they perform. In September, we can increase school participation to over a thousand, and break the $1M threshold in pennies gathered. Learning aside, the results are staggering. Penny Harvest students last year made 1,500 micro-grants totaling more than $650,000 to local charities serving the poor, hungry and ill in their neighborhoods. They also sponsored 345 additional service projects by other students and classes in their schools. The estimated hours of service Penny Harvest children performed tops 5 million for the year. Of course, as everyone knows, the children were not given the money they gave away. Instead, they raise it all themselves the hard way, one coin at a time in an annual penny recycling campaign that brings 10 tons of copper into schools every day for three weeks – which is why we call the whole yearlong citizenship program The Penny Harvest. Of course, these numbers don’t include the thousands of hours children spend learning basic academic subjects – such as writing, arithmetic, critical thinking, history, science and art through the Penny Harvest. Nor do these numbers communicate the pro-social values and good citizenship traits that are underscored as the Penny Harvest creates a “social contagion” effect year after year, in school after school. While neighborhood outcomes, both in grants and volunteer hours, have endeared Penny Harvest to community organizations -- and strengthened school-neighborhood ties -- it is the effect on children's morale and sense of connection to school and the classroom that accounts for the fierce love and loyalty that so many principals, teachers and parents have for the program. The diversity of our communities, the rising expectations for every child, and the growing movement to embrace service-learning as an effective pedagogy for student engagement suggests this might also be the moment to promote our homegrown program to other cities and to the new administration in Washington. There could be no better champion than a Mayor who has made a worldwide reputation for incubating and spreading innovations. The Penny Harvest is the most cost-effect and meaningful way to introduce children to a lifetime of citizenship and leadership as part of the school day. By growing and enriching it, we can help to make the Mayor’s call to service by all New Yorkers a reality. |
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