I just returned home from the Points of Light National Conference on Community Service in Orlando. Young people are selfish and don't want to make commitments.
Young people are the true activists today.
Older people may do nice, helpful things as volunteers, but cutting-edge work for social change is being done mainly by the young. It is dismaying to see time and talent wasted on such silly debate. In trying to analyze what is going on, I thought about an intriguing question posed to me during my recent trip to Australia. A community there is considering the formation of a senior volunteer program, much like RSVP elsewhere. In surprise, I realized that we have all begun to assume that age-based volunteer programs are natural and inevitable.