Why do community service? And what is community service?

I’ve generally thought that we perform community service for the general (or specific) betterment of one of the communities in which we live (local, state, country, world). And community service seems to me to be just about any practice that does this. It’s me volunteering to lead naturalist tours for public school kids at a local county park, but it’s also picking up trash in the vacant lot across the street. It doesn’t necessarily need to be formal, but it does benefit someone and something greater than myself. Community service acknowledges that I receive services from the community, and that I can give back in some fashion. It is broadly reciprocal.

 Noah Zatz has an interesting column in the Washington Post, A War on Community Service, on how the Department of Health and Human Services has changed the “community service” requirement for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), established under the Clinton administration, to define “community service” as “job-training.”

Traditional forms of community service — including many of those that are most beneficial to people in need — don’t count anymore, unless they are “designed to improve the employability” of those performing the services. But enhancing our own job skills is not the primary purpose of ladling soup for the hungry, beautifying our public lands, consoling the sick, bringing joy to the elderly and mentoring the young. Serving others is.

The administration’s interpretation not only mocks the spirit of public service but also mangles the law. The statute has other provisions for training and work experience. The regulations render the separate inclusion of “community service” superfluous.

Zatz explores further how the Bush administration then went on to shrink the definition of community service further to eliminate caregiving work (that is often done by women) and then completing the demolishment of the ethics of community service, which is essentially one of reciprocity, leaving every man for himself.