"I don't know what your fate will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have searched and found how to make it serve .”- Albert SchweitzerEvery community is like a human body, requiring a constant life force to survive. Volunteers and community service workers are the blood that keeps our communities going. Fortify our foundations. A community is only as strong as its weakest link. We must empower those who are weakened by poverty, discrimination and other social injustices. Compassion is a learned behavior. We get this through our parents who initially teach us moral principles such as empathy, kindness and fairness. Second, we can strengthen it through service learning projects in schools. Mandatory community service learning at the school level will benefit our country through increased volunteerism from the heart and social skills in our children and adolescents in the future. Service is your commitment to the relationship of the act of giving. Service is more sincere when we help through what we do who we are not. We must have compassion to be able to serve correctly to be in the situation with someone and not just for him (Wade, Rahima C., 1997). Volunteerism is ingrained in the fibers of Americans. For centuries we have helped our society in all aspects of volunteering. Harvard University, in 1636, established the first academic library staffed by volunteers. In 1736 the first Volunteer Fire Brigade was established; in 1857 the American Red Cross was organized using volunteer labor (Megan 2011). As volunteers, will we promote charity or solidarity? Charity proves insincere, superior and often sees the poor as subhuman. Solidarity presents ...... half of the document ......g-YouthO'Sullivan, Theresa A., Community Service in The United States, Alternatives to Improve Volunteerism Among Americans, Tallahassee, FL August 2004Vessels, G. , & Huitt, W. (2005). Moral and character development. Paper presented at the National Youth at Risk Conference, Savannah, GA, March 8-10. Retrieved [date], from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/papers/chardev.pdfhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_WoffordWade, Rahima C. “From a Distance: Service-Learning and Social Justice.” Integrating Service Learning and Multicultural Education in Colleges and Universities. Ed. Carolyn R. O'Grady. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2000. Young People Help America Educate for Active Citizenship: Service Learning, Service in Schools, and Youth Involvement 3/2006 Publisher: Corporation for National and Community Service.http://www.nationalservice .gov/