Authors: Paul Rogat Loeb.
Paperback, 368 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: 1999-03-15
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Soul of a Citizen awakens within us the desire and the ability to make our voices heard and our actions count. We can lead lives worthy of our convictions.

A book of inspiration and integrity, Soul of a Citizen is an antidote to the twin scourges of modern life-powerlessness and cynicism. In his evocative style. Paul Loeb tells moving tells moving stories of ordinary Americans who have found unexpected fulfillment in social involvement. Through their example and Loeb's own wise and powerful lessons, we are compelled to move from passivity to participation. The reward of our action, we learn, is nothing less than a sense of connection and purpose not found in a purely personal life.
...

    These are indeed cynical times. But to hide behind the smugness of cynicism is a kind of self-imposed death sentence, explains writer and social commentator Paul Loeb. In fact, now is the ideal time for gathering all our strengths and wisdom as spiritual beings and applying ourselves to shaping a better world, he claims.

Are we talking social activism here? Well, yes. But before you cringe from images of shrill, humorless, burned out activists, keep in mind that Loeb is talking about a new kind of activism--an exciting, spiritual model for creating social change. We don't have to be pious or martyred saints (as he explains throughout one chapter), starving ourselves in the name of a cause or staging protests in freezing rain. We can be "good enough" activists, assuming the task of helping 10 people in need rather than taking on the globe. We can remember the power of storytelling when convincing an audience, rather than angrily spewing scary facts. We can replenish ourselves so that we do not burn out. We can emphasize themes such as community and forgiveness rather than separatism and blame.

This is a deeply spiritual book, but make no mistake: Loeb's writing, research, and integrity are as solid as they come. Soul of a Citizen may well become The Handbook for activism at the turn of the century. --Gail Hudson...

Authors: Bill Clinton.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: 2007-09-04


Reviews :

   

Here, from Bill Clinton, is a call to action. Giving is an inspiring look at how each of us can change the world. First, it reveals the extraordinary and innovative efforts now being made by companies and organizations—and by individuals—to solve problems and save lives both “down the street and around the world.” Then it urges us to seek out what each of us, “regardless of income, available time, age, and skills,” can do to help, to give people a chance to live out their dreams.

Bill Clinton shares his own experiences and those of other givers, representing a global flood tide of nongovernmental, nonprofit activity. These remarkable stories demonstrate that gifts of time, skills, things, and ideas are as important and effective as contributions of money. From Bill and Melinda Gates to a six-year-old California girl named McKenzie Steiner, who organized and supervised drives to clean up the beach in her community, Clinton introduces us to both well-known and unknown heroes of giving. Among them:

Dr. Paul Farmer, who grew up living in the family bus in a trailer park, vowed to devote his life to giving high-quality medical care to the poor and has built innovative public health-care clinics first in Haiti and then in Rwanda;
a New York couple, in Africa for a wedding, who visited several schools in Zimbabwe and were appalled by the absence of textbooks and school supplies. They founded their own organization to gather and ship materials to thirty-five schools. After three years, the percentage of seventh-graders who pass reading tests increased from 5 percent to 60 percent;'
Oseola McCarty, who after seventy-five years of eking out a living by washing and ironing, gave $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi to endow a scholarship fund for African-American students;
Andre Agassi, who has created a college preparatory academy in the Las Vegas neighborhood with the city’s highest percentage of at-risk kids. “Tennis was a stepping-stone for me,” says Agassi. “Changing a child’s life is what I always wanted to do”;
Heifer International, which gave twelve goats to a Ugandan village. Within a year, Beatrice Biira’s mother had earned enough money selling goat’s milk to pay Beatrice’s school fees and eventually to send all her children to school—and, as required, to pass on a baby goat to another family, thus multiplying the impact of the gift.

Clinton writes about men and women who traded in their corporate careers, and the fulfillment they now experience through giving. He writes about energy-efficient practices, about progressive companies going green, about promoting fair wages and decent working conditions around the world. He shows us how one of the most important ways of giving can be an effort to change, improve, or protect a government policy. He outlines what we as individuals can do, the steps we can take, how much we should consider giving, and why our giving is so important.

Bill Clinton’s own actions in his post-presidential years have had an enormous impact on the lives of millions. Through his foundation and his work in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, he has become an international spokesperson and model for the power of giving.

“We all have the capacity to do great things,” President Clinton says. “My hope is that the people and stories in this book will lift spirits, touch hearts, and demonstrate that citizen activism and service can be a powerful agent of change in the world.”

...

Authors: Karen M. Jones.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: New World Library
Publication Date: 2004-12-16


Reviews :

    This timely compilation features 365 simple actions people can take to change the world, one day - or even five minutes - at a time. Each suggested action, in 16 "helping" categories, can be started and finished in a day or less, and none requires a cash donation. Readers may choose to accomplish a different altruistic step each day of the year, activate the same tool every day, or take actions that address a personally favored issue, such as animal welfare, or the pursuit of peace. Possibilities for compassionate service include acting as driver for a battered women's shelter, planting trees or a garden at a schoolyard, recycling running shoes into a playground surface, taking a day off from consumerism, aiding low-income students in finding grants and scholarships, helping unemployed workers put together resumes, and much more....

Authors: Dillon Banerjee.
Paperback, 178 pages
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Publication Date: 2000-01

Authors: Michael Jacoby Brown.
Paperback, 424 pages
Publisher: Long Haul Press
Publication Date: 2007-01-15


Reviews :

    A practical and personal guide to creating groups that can solve community and workplace problems. Using lessons learned, exercises and stories from the experience of the author and others, this book brings alive the process of community organizing and community building. It is for anyone who wants to start or strengthen a commuity group, a congregation, a neighborhood association, a civic group, or any other group that deals with the many problems and concerns we all face in our everyday lives....

Authors: Joseph Collins. Stefano DeZerega. Zahara Heckscher.
Paperback, 496 pages
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Publication Date: 2001-12-31


Reviews :

    More than 100,000 people contact the Peace Corps every year, but only 3,000 are placed overseas. To help more Americans find volunteer opportunities abroad Joseph Collins, Stefano DeZerega, and Zahara Heckscher-all founders of respected volunteer organizations-have written a guide that provides all the necessary information on volunteering in Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Presented in a user-friendly format that includes case studies, worksheets, and quotes from international volunteers, How to Live Your Dream of Volunteering Overseas provides college students, senior citizens, and everyone in between with information on:

* How to decide if volunteering overseas is for you
* How to choose the right program
* What to do before and after you go abroad
* Fundraising and financing
* How to be an effective volunteer
* Political and social contexts of Americans volunteering abroad
* The Peace Corps
* More than one hundred volunteer organizations
...

Authors: Jonathan R. McKee.
Paperback, 176 pages
Publisher: Group Publishing
Publication Date: 2007-11-05

Authors: Bob Greene.
Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Publication Date: 2003-05-01


Reviews :

   

In search of "the best America there ever was," bestselling author and award-winning journalist Bob Greene finds it in a small Nebraska town few people pass through today -- a town where Greene discovers the echoes of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a country and its sons.

During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains en route to their ultimate destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town, wanting to offer the servicemen warmth and support, transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen.

Every day of the year, every day of the war, the Canteen -- staffed and funded entirely by local volunteers -- was open from five a.m. until the last troop train of the day pulled away after midnight. Astonishingly, this remote plains community of only 12,000 people provided welcoming words, friendship, and baskets of food and treats to more than six million GIs by the time the war ended.

In this poignant and heartwarming eyewitness history, based on interviews with North Platte residents and the soldiers who once passed through, Bob Greene tells a classic, lost-in-the-mists-of-time American story of a grateful country honoring its brave and dedicated sons.

...

    Millions of American soldiers, many of whom had never left their hometowns before, crossed the nation by rail during the years of World War II on their way to training camps and distant theaters of battle. In a little town in Nebraska, countless thousands of them met with extraordinary hospitality--the "miracle" of veteran journalist Bob Greene's title. "The best America there ever was. Or at least, whatever might be left of it." So Greene writes of North Platte, now a quiet town along the interstate, its main street all but dead. It was a quiet town then, too, at the outbreak of the war, but still a hive of activity as its citizens gathered to provide, at their own expense, coffee, sandwiches, books, playing cards, and time to the scared young men who rolled through by the trainload, "telling them that their country cared about them." Greene's pages are full of the voices of those who were there, soldiers and townspeople alike, who took part in what amounted to small acts of heroism, given the shortages and rationing of the time. Greene, generous in his praise if rather disheartened by the modern world, against which he contrasts the past, turns in a remarkable account of the home front. It deserves the widest audience. ---Gregory McNamee...

Authors: Bill McMillon. Doug Cutchins. Anne Geissinger.
Paperback, 416 pages
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Publication Date: 2006-02-01
Edition: 9

Reviews :

    ...

Authors:
Paperback, 144 pages
Publisher: Food First
Publication Date: 2005-10-31


Reviews :

    Make Your Commitment Count! Want to work on a volunteer project that really matters but don't know where to start looking? Alternatives to the Peace Corps is the original resource for finding community-based, grassroots volunteer work-the kind of work that changes the world, one person at at time. Thoroughly revised, expanded, and updated in its tenth edition, Alternatives to the Peace Corps has:

* listings for over 100 carefully selected national and international organizations

* NEW tips on researching and evaluating organizations

* NEW help with budgeting and fundraising

* an extensive resource section full of books, websites, and organizations for further reading and research and much more. Whether you want to volunteer at home or abroad, and whether you can spend two years or two weeks, Alternatives to the Peace Corps will help you find a volunteer experience to match your highest ideals....