Now don't suppose that's possible. To talk to United Way meeting these days without telling you. That you are among the famous thousand points of light. It's true. United the way agents is and volunteers are beacons of Hope lighting the dark corners of our society with desperately needed services. But they are many kinds of light. From flickering candles to Giant searchlights you at United Way need to supply the extra wattage. our society needs for these are pivotal time. Community agencies and volunteers are doing a lot. to help Society deal with its problem But Community agents is and volunteers have to do more. A lot more whatever you are doing start with the assumption that it's not as much as you could do and take it from there. I hope that message does not disappoint anyone in this room today. When people work as hard as you have four causes as good as the ones you've given your time and energies to you are entitled to a lots of praise and Pat's on the back and you deserve it. People who work for the United Way who volunteer to work in soup kitchens and hospitals who ring doorbells and serve on community agency boards are indeed the cream. of our society as greed was elevated to respectability and indifference to the needy became a part of our national style you stood against the time you shared you gave. You led. And you did it at considerable personal sacrifice? Hours of working to improve the quality of life for everyone in the community means fewer hours to spend with your family's with your hobbies with your many other responsibilities. You've done it because you know, there's a lot more to life. than material success on monetary Rewards helping others who need help is one of the great human satisfaction I'm no behavioral scientist. So I can't say whether it is a basic human instinct or not. But history shows that when people come together to help each other they are society's survive and prosper. That is certainly true of America whose people have traditionally looked to their neighbors for mutual help. Over a century and a half ago the French Observer Alexis de tocqueville Marvel at the way Americans joined self-interest to volunteerism. And he wrote The Following Americans show how an enlightened the regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist one another and inclines them to willingly and Klein's them willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the state in the quote. Since those words were written Americans have continued to share their energies to make their society better. We know that volunteer work brings inner satisfaction personal self respect and connects people and in most meaningful way to their community and to the larger society. That's all the more reason to do. More Mae West once said you can't have too much of a good thing. Now why she may not have been referring to volunteer work? Of the sort the United Way is involved in. That's the attitude we need today. For the growth of poverty and inequality in our society has led to a real crisis in America that can only be resolved with the full wholehearted participation of voluntary agencies and of concerned individuals. It's too easy for agencies and individuals to take Justified pride and what they've done without realizing that until America's deep social problems are resolved and a just and Equitable manner. There's no time to do anything. Other than press on with the fight. In some ways you hear a lucky? Minneapolis is a city that is managed to escape the full severity of many of the challenges faced by other cities. I live in Washington DC. the nation's capital where infant mortality rates are higher than those of many third world countries for school children want a gauntlet of drug dealers where homeless people sleep on sidewalks in sight of the White House. Your problems have not yet reached the critical mass that makes them appear resistant to your efforts. That's not to suggest. They are serious or that they don't threaten to expand your efforts to contain them. But it does suggest that you are in a relatively fortunate position rare among many of your peers in some other cities you have programs in place such as the success by six. Early childhood development program that can make a real difference in people's lives and in your communities future. Your Housing Initiative can solve the challenge of providing affordable housing for low income people. Such efforts are typical of a community with a long Rich tradition of public-private Partnerships and an ethic of committed voluntary action as I see it. Your challenge today is to build on that tradition and on your current efforts and to have the staying power to reach your goal. America has seen too many promising starts Fade Away into failure. And the 1960s we had a war on poverty that waved the white flag of defeat and spite of demonstrated successes such as Head Start The Job Corps and Community empowerment program in the 1970s. We saw the activism of the business Community fade as the danger of Riot receded and too many corporate leaders became frustrated at the slow rate of progress. And in the 1980's the Reagan Administration decided that fighting poverty was not as important as fighting Star Wars and it publicized the strange notion that government programs only make poverty worse. I call that notion strange because it was government programs like the GI Bill of Rights that moved a whole generation out of poverty and into the middle class. I call that notion strange because it was government programs like Social Security that drastically cut poverty for Elder citizens. I call that notion strange because it was government programs like federally insured mortgages that virtually created Suburbia. The Reagan Administration decided that rich people needed incentives to work harder so it cut taxes for their fluent by almost half. But the administration decided that poor people would not work if they could get welfare or food stamps. And so it cut programs that enable the poor to survive worse. It cut programs that enable the poor to escape poverty. programs like college tuition Grant education Aid and job training as a result poverty rates moved up to levels not seen in 15 years and he quality of the increased drastically and the quality of urban life decline. Minorities suffered more than others the slow but steady progress made by black Americans was reversed. In the 1980's the black poor increased by over 2 million. Black unemployment increased to two and a half times of white rate. even after the longest peacetime economic expansion black employment is still at recession levels of 11% One recent health study found that black male mortality rates in Harlem higher than those of Bangladesh other recent studies found that in spite of the law Banks and mortgage lenders still Red Line black neighborhoods still other studies find declining black college enrollments and more black childhood poverty. as The Architects of the mean Society rolled back the Great Society They came up with another strange notion. That America's social responsibilities were not the business of government. But of private voluntary groups the result was that United Way agencies and other community-based organizations serving the most vulnerable members of our society were hit by two major factors one was a sharp decline in government support for their work. As Washington cut back on social programs. It also cut back funding for the local voluntary agencies that actually implemented those programs at the community level without those federal funds many agents is had to cut back on staff and programs funds from other sources often Rose as a private sector and individuals met their responsibilities. But for most organizations, especially those serving the most vulnerable in our society scarce resources became scarce, sir. At the same time those agents his were hit by the second Factor. A sharp rise and the demand for their services caused by federal cutbacks that led to more hunger more homelessness and more despair. That suggests to me a double responsibility for voluntary agencies the multitude of good people who work so hard to relieve the suffering and their communities and the United Way. responsibility number one there for Is to do more the needs are simply too great to allow ourselves to even think of any alternative. Agencies involved in human services have to manage their limited resources to squeeze the maximum Services out of the resources. They have many are doing that. They are sharpening their missions and listing more volunteers and doing more with less. Volunteers can do more as well. I know there are only so many hours in a day, but every volunteer should see himself or herself as a recruiter to enlist friends and neighbors to give more of their time and energies to causes that make a difference in people's lives. The United Way all over this country is challenged to raise even more resources and to Target them more sharply on the areas of greatest need. Your priorities have to be concentrated on the most severe problems of your community and your nation the needs of the poorest Among Us must have first claim on your energies and your resources. This is something you and many other United ways around the country are doing and I urge you to take that challenge as your most urgent mission. responsibility number two Is to expand the definition of your role. Agencies that serve the sick the hungry the homeless and the needy can no longer limit themselves to narrow Services. Advocacy. Advocacy on behalf of the interests of Those whom you serve must become a priority only through advocacy for constructive private and public policies. Can we attack the root causes of the problems? We are forced to deal with indeed we need to make a Clear Connection between the growing numbers of the homeless and public policies that reduce the availability of affordable housing for low-income people. We need to make a clear connection between providing emergency Health Services for poor people and the need for policies that enable access to Quality Healthcare for all and we need to make a clear connection between the poverty that leads so many to turn to you for survival services and the racism and discrimination that Force so many of minority people into poverty. Indeed. We cannot simply provide first aid to the wounded and our society. We have to change the conditions that inflicted their womb now. I understand why many people may not be entirely comfortable with that notion. Volunteering for service provision offers immediate satisfactions and visible results but advocacy for changes in public and private institutional policies can be frustrating, but I would argue that despite the frustration that we really really have no choice. The 1990s will be a time of accelerating change that will have a serious negative impact on our nation unless public and private policies chain. Let me just mention a few of the trends. We need to consider as we seek to make our communities better. and our nation stronger more than one of every five American children is growing up poor. Among blacks one of every two children are poor four out of five new entrants to the workforce and this decade will be women and minorities 1/4 of American High School students drop out and 1/4 graduate without basic skills, but in Japan 95% of their children graduate with Advanced skills. I kind of it has become part of a larger global economy a trend that will intensify the 1992 economic integration of Europe. Low-skilled jobs will shrink but opportunities will expand for flexible people who have the ability to learn and to adapt to new ways of doing things. technological change will accelerate and new information Technologies and production processes will continue to transform the workplace to percentage of full-time working women with children will continue to increase By the end of the century that will be an elder boom with expanding numbers of the old old people and their 90's and more. Those are among the trend that will make the 1990s. A make-or-break decade for the United States of America are standing of living and our position in the world will depend on whether we can bring America's neglected minorities and poor people into the mainstream of American Life. And the 99 is will be a time of new pressures on already strained the service Delivery Systems from schools to housing from hospitals to daycare. That means we must rise to the challenge to do more to do more and to do more and to do more and to do it better. We must take as our Credo. These words of William James. What do we do compared to what we can do? Is like comparing the waves on top of the ocean with the oceans Mighty depths. So this is a time to come together to provide higher levels of services that enable people to contribute to our society and to provide the forceful. Advocacy that enables Society to respond creatively to its challenges. This is not something only government. Can I should do it's not something only the private sector can or should do nor is it something only United Way agencies in volunteers can or should do rather it is a task requiring partnership creative partnership among the public the private and the voluntary sectors. It will take the combined determined efforts of all of us to help change our society in ways that are essential for our nation's future well-being. And the central feature of such efforts must be Partnerships that change our society by responding to the most critical needs of the victims of past neglect. The United Way has to be at the center of that effort. Its member agencies are in the trenches of the battle against poverty and disease and ignorance ignorance. They are the focal point of Citizen efforts to build a better Society. You can be the Catalyst as you have been to Galvanize the community behind the solutions. You can be the mobilize and the facilitator that make good things happen. And you can do it. Because there are people out there willing to Rally to your call and to work as hard and as long as they're able to good people who want to help others make their Community work for the betterment of all. Those dedicated people know that they are touching the lives of countless individuals who will never know their names. Not what they did, but whose lives will be better and brighter. For the efforts I speak. from the personal experience of one of those nameless people Yonder in America who benefited from the work of United Way agents is and volunteers. As a child out ended the gates it a day nursery on Stone Wall Street and Atlanta. a United Way agency Learn the skills and values that helped shape me as a man at the Butler Street YMCA a United Way agency. Put those skills and values to work to try to help others through the Urban League. A United Way agency today. There are other other young people. Out there like me they are in United Way supported daycare centers. They're shooting baskets and learning values like sharing and caring at the wire and they are studying at the Urban League education program those young people are our future. If they succeed in life. America succeeds if they fail America will fail. Indeed Herman Melville put it right when he wrote. That we cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads and along these sympathetic fibers are actions run his causes and return to us as results. The United Way is about the business of taking positive actions that return to all of us as positive results, and the United Way is needed today as never before. for from the streets of this city and from the crevices of this nation. We hear a plea in a cry. In the words of the old Negro spiritual asking pleading. Is there no balm in Gilead. Is there no physician there and it is the United Way and its volunteers that must turn that question mark into an exclamation point responding. Yes. There is a balm in Gilead. There is a physician there. It is the United Way at its volunteers and its member agencies is it is the United Way who must provide the services and the advocacy so desperately needed by the most vulnerable Among Us who must do more and do more and then do even more And as you think about doing more I leave you with these words. of an anonymous poet who wrote I am only one. But still I am one. I cannot do everything but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything. I will not refuse to do the something. That I can do. To that end United Way of Minneapolis your duties and your responsibilities are clear. You have a charge to keep. A calling to fulfill a rendezvous with a just and righteous cause and as you turn to these new task of doing more and more and more. May you be steadfast strong. And of good cheer, may you neither stumble not falter rather. May you mount up with wings as Eagles? May you run and not be weary. May you walk together children and not faint. Thank you. God bless you all.