Service has a long and venerable history in the United States.
It has perhaps become a clich , but Americans' generosity and penchant to organize to meet community needs were both noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic, Democracy in America. And so it continues today. Three-quarters of American households give to charity. Today, even liberals are championing civil society. Herds of politicians now say that families and communities, not governments, hold the answer to America's social problems.