Mandated volunteerism

Schools today require students to log countless hours of community service. It's gotten out of hand.

from the July 16, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

To do: Study for the SAT, take 200 AP classes, do charity.

Because their schools have reduced charitable giving to a numbers game, I'm not even sure today's students feel the genuine satisfaction that comes from caring deeply about a cause and becoming involved in it.

This trend in philanthropy also fails those who serve in ways that are impossible to document in hours. Should Bill Gates and his children stop cutting those billion-dollar checks and put more time into freeway trash removal? Ask the heads of charitable organizations and they'll tell you they are as grateful for the check cutters as they are for the foot soldiers.

There are kids out there in every type of school, private and public, who simply can't give up a Saturday to clean the trash on a beach because their moms work two jobs and they have to watch their young siblings. They do this without pay and without credit. They are doing a noble service to their families and to their communities. Yet Harvard will never know about it. They'll only read about the millionaire who pays thousands of dollars so his kid can serve food to an African village over spring break. That's a lot of good hours. That kid clearly cares the most. He wins. It is, after all, a competition, right?

All philanthropy is good, but, ideally, I'd like my family to follow a model that operates on the principle that charity begins at home. In this model, family members take care of one another first and then the people around them, financially and physically if needed. But there are no organizations involved, no plaques in their names, and no one to sign their kid's blue sheets when they spend evenings entertaining the children of sick parents. It's just the right thing to do. I would love my children to give and serve, not because they're getting credit for it, but because it's right.

• Carly Bickley is a screenwriter and mother of three.

1 | Page 2