Mixing autobiographical reminiscence, analysis, and oral testimony, the book doubles as a record of many conversations about the nature of voluntary service, and as an account of Coles's own reflections on his work. The volunteers who are most successful, he finds, are those who genuinely like the people they meet, who quickly lose the sense that they are martyrs making a sacrifice and, most importantly, who realize that they are getting something in return. Again and again, the stories affirm that service is not a hierarchy but a reciprocity in which the distinctions between teacher and pupil, giver and receiver, helper and helped constantly dissolve. Throughout the book, Coles quotes his own teachers and mentors, people such as Dorothy Day, William Carlos Williams, and Anna Freud whom he feels are important role models for service. Anna Freud, similarly, is quoted extensively.
Coles feels that service ought to be a critical component of higher education.
Reflecting on our ties to the larger community, and what we are able to offer it as individuals is, after all, what colleges and universities are all about.