We must ask them to act as well. In the end, our disagreement over AmeriCorps is not whether service is good. It is not whether full-time volunteers are valuable. Rather, it is whether we should ask the American people to do not only the volunteering but also the funding. Only then will we bring out the best in them and in America.
History suggests otherwise.
First, there have long been opportunities for a small number of people to serve full-time with organizations such as the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. But it was AmeriCorps that provided a quantum leap in full-time service. More than 150,000 people have enlisted, as many as have volunteered in the Peace Corps since it began in 1961. Most members come from middle-income families and couldn't serve without a living allowance. Second, you suggest that without AmeriCorps, traditional volunteers would take up the slack and perform services that AmeriCorps members are currently doing.