The Pike County Youth Coalition will be convening a meeting on June 9 to discuss a national service initiative and how our community can be a part of it. The letter below is being sent to various service organizations and community leaders.

Pike County Summer Service Initiative

To Whom It May Concern:

I recently had the honor of joining the First Lady in Washington, DC for a meeting to discuss a new service initiative that will be launched next month by the Corporation for National and Community Service. I am excited to share what I have learned with you and to gather your feedback. Hopefully, you and/or your organization will be interested in becoming involved.

The Summer Service Initiative is designed to engage citizens across the country in high-impact, community-based service projects. It will be announced with a call to service by the President in early June and take place between June 22 and September 11. The focus will be on economic recovery, particularly around education, energy/environment, healthcare and community renewal. Its purpose is to bolster civic engagement and to establish public/private partnerships to develop sustainable service opportunities for all Americans.

At a time when we face tremendous challenges, Americans have demonstrated a desire to give back at levels unprecedented in decades. The initiative aims to funnel this energy into meeting growing social needs, town-by-town and city-by-city. The White House and federal agencies will be generating excitement about this national initiative and providing resources through www.serve.gov; it will be our task to locally develop one or more ways to engage the many citizens that are expected to become interested and look to contribute in their own backyard.

This is an extraordinary opportunity for community leaders, volunteers and organizations in Pike County to come together to work on a project this summer that focuses on specific issues within our own community, while engaging and expanding our local volunteer base. The recently completed Wayne/Pike Needs Assessment provides a great place to start in identifying one or more areas of focus for such a project.

You or a representative from your organization are cordially invited to attend a meeting on Tuesday, June 9 at the County Administration Building’s basement conference room to brainstorm and plan a project for the summer service initiative. The meeting will either be held at 9:00 AM or 7:00 PM, depending on when more people are able to attend. Please RSVP at your earliest convenience, indicating if either or both times are preferable. The invitation is open, so please feel free to forward this to any person or organization you believe might be interested.

It is my hope that we can create a consensus at this meeting about what kind of project we can jointly launch on June 22 and how we each can contribute to its success. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Nick Troiano

Executive Director, PCYC

A letter to the editor in this week's PIke County Courier urged the community not to support lowering the drinking age to 18, as was recently suggested by a growing group (120+) of college presidents part of the Amethyst Initiative. They argue that the current law increases problems associated with underage drinking by forcing it underground into a dark and dangerous world.

I will withhold giving my two cents on the topic here save for some personal observations, but I think it is a good idea for young people, and the community, to engage in some dialogue on this topic. Not that Pike County can change the law, or that the PCYC will have much say in the matter, but I think one thing can be said for certain and reflected in our approach to this topic locally, alcohol consumption by young people becomes that much more perilous when we treat it as a sort of taboo topic.

For instance: A friend of mine recalls when he went to college, his RA went so far as to provide the residents of the building with alcohol on weekends but ensured it was consumed in a relatively safe and responsible manner by the grown adults present (most of whom who were 18 years of age and could otherwise be dying for their country). Let's contrast that to where I went to school at American University, which had a "dry campus" where even 21 year-olds could not consume. As a result, most students engaged in binge drinking and hard-alcohol consumption. That led to many more being hospitalized and injured.

College presidents and many others, in my interpretation and reading, have looked at underage drinking, by 18-21 year olds in particular, as an inevitable circumstance that we need to deal with more pragmatically as a country. Of course others, have stood up to this idea saying that only more harm can come.

What has been your experience or what are your thoughts?

Post by Nick Troiano, Executive Director

View the letter: http://www.strausnews.com/articles/2008/09/16/pike_county_courier/opinion/1.txt

Last week, I had the privilege to attend the ServiceNation summit in New York City. The summit was a gathering of 500 non-profit, business, political, and educational leaders who met to jump-start the National Service movement in our country.

Representing the Pike County Youth Coalition, I was part of a group of 100 under 30-year- olds who came from every corner of the country and were working within our own communities to extend and support service opportunities. (As you hopefully read, PCYC recently launched its youth volunteer corps.)

To briefly recap the trip: The first night of the summit, televised on many cable networks, was the Presidential Candidates Forum. There, we heard from our next President, who committed to making citizen service a priority in his administration and to sign the Serve America Act of 2008, which was introduced at the conference by Senators Kennedy and Hatch.

The next day allowed participants the chance to attend a variety of panels and discussions about the future of service in America. I attended two panels: one on how to incorporate service learning into public education and the other about how bipartisan coalitions in Congress can work to create and fund the necessary legislation.

It was incredibly inspiring to be in the company of these national leaders who, regardless of age, ethnicity, or politics, joined together in a common vision, which among other things, called for making service a civic right of passage for every young American. That was my take-home message I have since committed myself to furthering.

So what does it mean exactly? It means that every young American, in one way or another and on a voluntary basis, be afforded the opportunity to serve - whether that is enlisting in the Military, joining the Peace Corps, participating in Teach for America, spending two years with AmeriCorps, or something else. Public/private partnerships would create and encourage more opportunities so that young people, in greater numbers, can answer the question posed almost a half-century ago - what can you do for your country?

It has been my experience working both locally and for a national non-profit dedicated to youth civic engagement that my generation, the Millennial Generation, perhaps more than any other in recent history, desires to give back. Trends have shown this. As I wrote in a blog for ServiceNation, perhaps it’s because we found working outside what we perceive to be a broken political system is more effective in creating social change. Perhaps it’s because we are defined by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and were forever inspired by the subsequent showing of national unity and call to service. Whatever the reason, young people are becoming more engaged and our society stands to benefit immensely because of that.

Providing more opportunities and facilitating existing ones are imperative steps. In Pike County, I think we are doing a superb job. The United Way Day of Caring, the community Relay for Life, the annual volunteer recognition dinner, and countless other events and organizations show how much our community values community service. Hopefully, the Youth Volunteer Corps can add to that. And hopefully, we can continue to engage more and more young people. So it is our duty as a community to pave the way for this movement, especially at a time when the need for it is so immense. Whether it is fixing educational inequality, renovating our national infrastructure, aiding in disaster relief - or whether it is a simple as lending a hand at the food pantry, cleaning up the park, or repainting a fence - young people are ready to take it on.

Post by Nick Troiano, Executive Director

TIME: The Case for National Service.

Service Nation

At its August regular meeting, the PCYC board of directors unanimously passed a resolution in favor of the establishment of a US Public Service Academy. The PCYC will now be added to the expanding list of non-profit and other organizations that join in this effort, widely supported by young people across the country.

The resolution can be read here.

The academy will operate in much the same way as the current service academies. In return for a free education, students will pledge to serve five years in the public sector. The proposal will combine the young generation's desire for citizen service with the growing need for qualified and competent public servants. More information can be found here.

Every time I hear the phrase "due process hearing" used in the context of DV's expulsion policy, I get a pit in my stomach. Echoing a nice sounding phrase proves nothing of its actual validity (this reminds me of McDonalds' all white meat chicken nuggets).

Here is a good place to start: what is due process? Essentially, it is a constitutional guarantee that a person be given a fair and impartial trial when he or she risks losing life, liberty, or property. In other words, if the government (in this case school officials), makes an allegation against you, you have certain rights to defend yourself. Let's go through some of them and some basic principles of justice we, as Americans, should expect a "due process hearing" to encompass.

Innocent until proven guilty. In the district, an alleged offender is removed from school until his or her hearing for at least ten days. To his or her peers, is there any question of guilt remaining? I think not. (Granted this may be for the safety of other students in some cases, in which case, I would agree it is necessary.)

Right to competent counsel. At a recent board meeting, it was said that due to time constraints of the legal proceeding, students may not have time to have a lawyer. Even worse, it is very difficult for a student who cannot afford one to retain one. The district does not provide counsel to those who do not have one.

Judgement by a jury of one's peers. In the district, nine school board members playing judges will make the decision. They certainly are not the peers of the student. They are elected community members.

Judgement by an unbiased jury. Questions of bias are fair because the people answering to the community about drug and alcohol use are the same rendering the decisions. Is it not in their interest to be tough on these offenses for political purposes (even if it means being unfair to the offender)? I'm not saying this is necessarily the case today. Regardless, it is a reason for concern.

Punishment should fit the crime. All the offenses in the district have a predetermined minimum punishment: 10 day suspension and referral for expulsion. It can also be argued further that most also result in a one year minimum expulsion, though not always the case.

Nor shall excessive fines be imposed. An expulsion for being found with Advil? I think this qualifies for being excessive.

Well that's a good half-dozen reasons (most of which are ingrained in the 5th and 8th amendments) on why we should be wary with trumpeting "Due Process Hearing!" when some fundamental rights and principles, to an extent or in full, are completely absent or undermined in DVSD's expulsion process. I really fear for the future of our country if this is what we are teaching our youth about due process rights (some actually believe it). If you agree with the process, fine. But don't insult judicial principles stemming from the Magna Carta by insisting this is what we should greatly value as due process.

Frankly, many supporters, including fellow students, need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid. The US Supreme Court upheld in Tinker V. Des Moines that public school students do not shed their rights when they walk through the gate. It is about time we stand up for that message, and ourselves.

Post by Nick Troiano, Executive Director



PCYC's invitation to host other blog posts on this or any other topic from anyone still stands. You can send your thoughts to pcyc@pikeyouth.org for publication.