USA Freedom Corps head John Bridgeland hopes to build a culture of service
Read and comment on this story from the Associated Press on USA Freedom Corps head John Bridgeland who hopes to build a culture of service. Bridgeland’s job is to use the recent surge in volunteerism and build that into a culture of service that will last for decades. Collecting trash with one of his three young children on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was part of that: Bridgeland and other service groups want Americans to think of the holiday as “a day on, not a day off.” “We don’t want to federalize service in the country, we want to use it as a lever to mobilize millions of Americans ... to remind them that service is part of what it means to live in America,” he said. Read the story at:
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Ohio native hopes to build a culture of service
Sunday, February 2, 2003
By MALIA RULON Associated Press writer
WASHINGTON — John Bridgeland grasps a black plastic garbage bag in his left hand as he and his 12-year-old daughter, Caily, rummage through cold orange and brown leaves to pluck out bits of trash.
Nearby, a woman wearing an AmeriCorps sweat shirt unearths an old Doritos bag and a flattened Subway cup. Dozens of other volunteers armed with trash bags fan out across the empty lot in the heart of one of the city’s poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods.
Bridgeland, 42, a Cincinnati-area native, is director of President Bush’s newly created USA Freedom Corps — a challenge in challenging times, he said.
“We are facing a 30-year decline in volunteer service and civic participation in the country,” Bridgeland said. “We are hopeful, we think, that 9-11 has been a transforming moment. A lot of Americans are looking at their own lives and thinking about what their obligations are in terms of their desire to serve.”
Bridgeland’s job is to use the recent surge in volunteerism and build that into a culture of service that will last for decades. Collecting trash with one of his three young children on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was part of that: Bridgeland and other service groups want Americans to think of the holiday as “a day on, not a day off.”
“We don’t want to federalize service in the country, we want to use it as a lever to mobilize millions of Americans ... to remind them that service is part of what it means to live in America,” he said.
Organizational umbrella
Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address announced plans to create the corps, which serves as his administration’s umbrella for existing volunteer programs, such as AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Peace Corps and the new Citizen Corps.
“What it means is that instead of working as an independent agency on our own, we’re able to work with the White House and get more things done,” said Leslie Lenkowsky, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service which oversees AmeriCorps and the National Civilian Community Corps. “It has been a terrific blessing.”
Bridgeland, who was working in the White House as director of the domestic policy council, was tapped a year ago to lead the new Freedom Corps and oversee the president’s Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives.
“The president asked for a major service initiative that would become the times,” he said. “We had an opportunity to do something that would actually make a difference.”
Over the past year, the corps has come out with the first nationwide survey of how many Americans are serving — 59 million, or 27.6 percent of the civilian population age 16 and over.
Those volunteers are tutoring, mentoring, building houses, teaching computer skills, cleaning parks and streams, and helping communities respond to disasters.
Just ask
It’s also worked to combat two common reasons why people don’t volunteer: They don’t know where to volunteer and they haven’t been asked.
The corps launched a search engine on its Web site to help people find places to volunteer by typing in their zip code and, via links to more than 20,000 service organizations, instantly find opportunities in their hometowns.
Bridgeland is “good at taking difficult, even vexing problems that are tough to address and coming up with ideas for how to address them,” said Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
Bridgeland previously worked as chief of staff for Portman and legislative director to former Rep. Bob McEwen, R-Ohio.
He graduated from Harvard University with a major in government in 1982, then spent a year in Belgium on a Rotary International Fellowship, where he gave speeches about what it is like to be an American. Bridgeland returned to the United States and worked his way up from an intern in McEwen’s office to the former congressman’s legislative director.
After he graduated from the University of Virginia Law School in 1987, Bridgeland married his college sweetheart, Maureen, and went to work in the New York and Paris offices of Davis, Polk & Wardwell. He left the firm to join Portman’s office in 1993.
“It seemed like a really fun experience. Two young guys go on the Hill and see what we could do,” he said. “It was a tremendous five years.”
Legislative experience
Bridgeland worked on several successful pieces of legislation, including a bill that made the National Underground Railroad Network part of the National Park Service.
He left Portman’s office in 1998 to form a company called Civic Solutions, which promoted the role of nonprofits, foundations and corporations in public policy. Business partner Fred Nelson said Bridgeland is a hard worker who is committed to getting things right and the perfect fit for overseeing the corps.
“John believed very much in the ideal of service to one’s country. He is a very detail-oriented person who is grounded. Here’s a person with a strong commitment to family, a religious person, who’s deeply committed to trying to make things better,” Nelson said.
Bridgeland grew up in southwest Ohio as the youngest of five children. His father was an attorney who served on the school board and as mayor of Indian Hill, a Cincinnati suburb.
Bridgeland’s grandfather, who worked in a furniture store in Akron, Ohio, received a letter from former President Ronald Reagan thanking him for his perfect voting record.
That letter hangs on the wall in Bridgeland’s Washington office, which is on the second floor of a renovated town house a few steps from the White House.
Inspirations
Other pictures and letters on Bridgeland’s wall pay homage to those who have inspired him: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.
“A lot of Republicans, a lot of Democrats, a lot of independents. All inspiring,” said Bridgeland, who’s comfortable both sitting with the president at the White House and swapping stories with AmeriCorps volunteers.
Bridgeland, who often works 12-hour days and has a staff of 15, joined the Bush campaign in April 2000 after he was impressed with the team of political advisers that Bush had assembled at his headquarters in Austin, Texas.
Bridgeland spent much of the campaign in Austin, drafting issue papers and working on what would later become known as the compassionate conservative agenda.
After the election, he went to Tallahassee, Fla., to work on Bush’s legal strategy. Once in Washington, he worked on the administration’s transition team.
Bridgeland, an avid tennis player and bird watcher, lives in McLean, Va., with his wife and three children, Caily; Fallon, 8, and James Regis, 4.
Bridgeland is unsure what his next career move will be. For now, he’s happy working on a project that he believes could end up being his legacy.
“Past efforts, which have been very popular, like the Peace Corps, captured the country’s imagination. But with limited space, they don’t transform the culture,” he said. “We don’t want to federalize service in the country, we want to use it as a lever to mobilize millions of Americans ... to remind them that service is part of what it means to live in America.”
AP photos
ON THE JOB. John Bridgeland, 42, a native of Cincinnati and the director of the newly created USA Freedom Corps, is shown during an interview in his office (left) and as he helps gather trash in southeast Washington (right). Appointed to the post by President George Bush, Bridgeland said he took on a challenging job in challenging times. More about the USA Freedom Corps
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