If they were to send volunteers to Illinois, my State, I don't think they would have to put a staff in Illinois comparable to the kind of staff we have to put in Nigeria or Ethiopia. Again that would reduce the cost per volunteer under their program versus our program. are just off-the-cuff comments and I would be glad to do an analysis of that for you. These Mr. CLAY. I think Mr. Anderson will be here at a later date and he will no doubt have more detailed information. I do want to thank you very much, sir; and thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator WILLIAMS. I would think your transportation budget would be a very large factor. Mr. SHRIVER. It is something like that thousand dollars per volunteer on a worldwide basis. Senator WILLIAMS. Which of the expenses could we expect to be considerably less in the National Service Corps? How many nations are our U.S. Peace Corps people working in now? Mr. SHRIVER. Forty-six. Senator WILLIAMS. We don't want to delay you any longer. I think we should let you get back to the very important job you are doing for this Nation. You have certainly demonstrated this morning at the witness table why the Peace Corps abroad has the worldwide acceptance and gratitude of many millions of people. Mr. SHRIVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I might make one observation on a case that might be of interest to Senator Tower's assistant and it bears on the question of whether people would be qualified to serve in the National Service Corps who might not be qualified for the oversea Corps. There was lady from Texas named Janie Fletcher in whom Senator Tower took an interest who was selected out, we use that expression, of the Peace Corps for service in Brazil. She was a rural home economics and agricultural extension worker with a lot of experience. She was in her sixties. She was selected out of the Peace Corps principally because she could not get command of Portuguese well enough to work in rural Brazil. Actually to work in the rural area of the country you have to know the language better than to work in the city where people are perhaps more highly educated. This lady protested about being put out of the Peace Corps and pointed to her long record of successful work in Texas doing agricultural work exactly of the type that we wanted to have done in Brazil. This person, Mrs. Fletcher, might be a very useful candidate, a successful candidate working in the National Service Corps but because of the language deficiency could not work in the overseas Peace Corps. Since a great hullabaloo was made of that case at that time I thought it might be well to point it out as an example of how people could be used in a local operation and could not be used effectively abroad. Senator WILLIAMS. How many Mrs. Fletchers are there across the country? Mr. SHRIVER. That is the question I bring up. I think there are probably hundreds or thousands. I don't know. Thank you very much. (The prepared statement of Mr. Shriver follows:) PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON R. SARGENT SHRIVER, DIRECTOR OF THE PEACE CORPS Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I thank the committee for this opportunity to express to you my personal views on the proposed National Service Corps. It has been said that the idea of a National Service Corps grew out of the Peace Corps experience. This is basically correct. But the idea of the Peace Corps was not new. Voluntary individual service has always been a fundamental moral force in our society. The Peace Corps is now 2 years old. In that time we have made many discoveries, not only about people in other lands, but about our own people as well. We have learned that Americans are not selfish and soft. Experience has taught us that idealism and pragmatism are not contradictory terms and that neither is foreign to the new generation of Americans. We have learned that human ideals and enthusiasm are not static qualities. They cannot be measured in any statistical sense. We have found in the Peace Corps that the desire for action is highly contagious, and I believe we have yet to feel the full repercussions of the Peace Corps' stimulus in the broad area of volunteer service. Service to one's country traditionally has been thought of in purely military terms. But the desire for a relevant peacetime service is real, too. The outlet for that service, unfortunately, too often has been limited. The Peace Corps has provided a vital and effective outlet for Americans' desire to serve their country and the cause of peace. I believe that a similar effort can work within the framework of a National Service Corps. Applications for Peace Corps service have increased each year. An increasing number of Americans of all ages are anxious to serve in voluntary positions. Applications are currently running 280 percent ahead of 1961. Thousands of Americans can probably be attracted to join the National Service Corps. All around us is tangible proof of a dynamic American spirit. Peace Corps experience proves that individual Americans are willing to serve-and to sacrifice, if necessary-to serve their country at home and abroad. I hope you will give them the chance to do here what they are successfully doing overseas. Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you. We can't seem to get out of Illinois this morning, from Mr. Shriver, from Chicago, and to Mr. Gleason, and I think you have a little Chicago in you. STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN S. GLEASON, JR., ADMINISTRATOR, VETERANS' AFFAIRS Mr. GLEASON. I was born and raised there. Senator WILLIAMS. We are glad to hear from the heartland of our country. We are very pleased to have you here. I might say from your area of activity we have gotten a great deal of encouragement for this legislation. Mr. GLEASON. Thank you, Senator. Senator WILLIAMS. And we will have more. you care to. Proceed in any way Mr. GLEASON. Would you prefer that I read the statement, Senator? Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity to present my views to this distinguished committee and to assist in its deliberations on legislation to establish a National Service Corps. As a member of the President's Study Group, I wholeheartedly endorse this legislation. As Administrator of Veterans' Affairs, I wholeheartedly endorse it. But more than that, as a businessman, as a banker, as an Army officer, as a former national commander of the American Legion, and as a private citizen, I wholeheartedly endorse it. And I do so out of a deep personal conviction. In my own city of Chicago, for example, I had the privilege of being active in local civic affairs on behalf of the Girls Scouts, the Red Cross, the Chicago Youth Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews. I was impressed over and over again by the response of our citizens to the various appeals. They were generous with their gifts of dollars, of course. But more impressive were their gifts of their time, talent, energy, and effort in volunteering for a multitude of duties and assignments. I am sure that all of you have had similar experiences in your own communities with the dedication of citizen volunteers. It seems to me that the National Service Corps would provide a fulltime, year-round outlet for similar voluntary citizen participation. The National Service Corps would serve as a focal point for marshaling and mobilizing, for concentrating and coordinating this great force of voluntary citizen effort. The National Service Corps would provide an opportunity for Americans young and old alike to put out personal lifelines to millions of their less fortunate fellow Americans--that is, the sick, the deprived, the retarded, and the handicapped. The power of our people to help others help themselves is an enormous untapped natural resource. The Corps-national in scope but local in character-would be the key to the purposeful development and utilization of this potentially great social force. It would be applied at the many points of great need throughout the country, but only on the request and invitation of the community in need. Based upon our experience in the Veterans' Administration, such a program seems eminently workable. The Veterans' Administration has had a relatively long experience in the purposeful and effective use of volunteers. Some 17 years ago, we developed a plan for citizen participation in the patient-care programs of our hospitals and domiciliaries. We worked closely with outstanding veterans, welfare, and service organizations. And today more than 108,000 volunteers serve in our installations in an average month. They serve in regularly scheduled assignments under professional staff supervison and guidance, and provide invaluable supplemental assistance, as an extension, never a substitute for, our professional staff. We have youth volunteers, from high school to college students; we have senior citizen volunteers; and we have volunteers whose ages fall in between. They give many and varied services, including personal companionship, letter writing, reading to the blind, escorting or accompanying patients to therapy and to recreational activities, and providing direct services on the wards. Certain of these services may seem minor, but they are part and parcel of the job of making whole the minds and bodies of veteran patients. We consider volunteers an indispensable part of the VA medical team. As a part of this medical team, volunteers last year contributed almost 712 million man-hours. The service of VA volunteers to those who served has made a priceless contribution to the recovery of sick and disabled veterans. Their work is a significant demonstration of the use of the generosity, skill, and energy of people imbued with the spirit of serving and helping others. VA volunteers, in the main, have been generally limited to the areas around the 169 Veterans' Administration hospitals in which they serve. The national need for volunteer aid is naturally much broader. Indeed, our own need in VA for volunteers to serve veterans has spread beyond the confines of our hospitals. The mission of the Veterans' Administration is considerably broader than the treatment of a specific illness or disease. Social readjustment, rehabilitation, and reabsorption of veterans in the community are also our major concerns. Many of these home communities are far removed from VA hospitals. Accordingly, we see a positive value in National Service Corps assistance beyond the hospital and directly in the heart of the community. For, after a patient leaves the hospital, his home community becomes the stage where the crucial drama of successful or unsuccessful rehabilitation is played. Within our hospitals, as I have already indicated, there is an effective program for community volunteer participation in patientcare activities. Outside of our hospitals, many of our returning veteran patients need the kind of help that only volunteers can provide in furthering their successful adjustment to the community, and, of course, this need is not limited to veteran patients. It is shared by patients of State, municipal, and private hospitals. Perhaps the most needy group for posthospital community assistance are former psychiatric patients, older patients, long-term patients, and physically handicapped patients. There are community health and welfare agencies which afford veterans and others the opportunity to obtain needed financial, social, and psychological assistance outside the hospital. But the demand for service far outstrips the resources of the helping professions. Just as volunteers in our hospitals bridge the gap between professional and other needed care, so, too, can volunteer service outside the Veterans' Administration and other hospitals help bridge the gap between the institutional environment and the community to which the patient is returning. In many communities, however, there is no coordinated plan for volunteer services. Too often there is no focal point for the type of services needed by returning patients. Too often there is no cadre to launch a volunteer effort and sustain it. Too often a tremendous burst of local enthusiasm dwindles away in disillusionment because there was no one in charge over the long pull. The National Service Corps program can be such a focal point, individual corpsmen can be the catalytic agents in the community who provide leadership for a community-based volunteer program. Members of the National Service Corps can be the initiators who pitch right in at any level of work and lead the way by their example. With the National Service Corps serving as the focal point, volunteers from the community following their lead can provide a continuation of the community services that returning patients need. These aftercare hospital needs, let me point out, are not insignificant. In fiscal year 1962, the VA alone made more than 75,000 referrals of veterans needing assistance for medical rehabilitation care outside the hospital, to established health and welfare agencies in their home communities. To illustrate further the importance of aftercare needs, here are some findings of a recent survey made at 40 VA hospitals. We wanted to know which services were most needed by patients returning to the community. Following are the most important and in order of importance: (1) Financial assistance." (2) Drugs and medication. (3) Friendly visiting. (4) Employment of some kind-either sheltered, or part time or regular. (5) Transportation to clinics, shopping, church, and so forth. (6) Day-care centers and halfway houses. (7) Protected living arrangements. (8) Social group contacts. (9) Recreation. (10) Nursing-home care. At least four of these after-hospital-care needs-friendly visiting, transportation, social-group contacts, and recreation could be met through a coordinated plan for providing volunteer services in the community through a focal point provided by the National Service Corps. After such a program begins functioning in the community it could be extended to provide volunteer assistance in helping to meet such other needs on the list as employment, day-care centers and halfway houses, and nursing-home care. In this period, we have gained much practical experience in organizing, training, and supervising volunteer groups, and helping them learn how to work with professional and technical personnel in furthering the treatment and care of veterans. Thus, there is a great wealth of know-how in the Veterans' Administration for providing resource assistance to key corpsmen who would be providing leadership for community-based projects meeting the human needs of the community. Moreover, because of lengthy experience in the volunteer field, we can assist materially in the training of corpsmen and community volunteers. To me, the idea of a National Service Corps is based on the tradition of helping local communities help themselves. As I see it, the National Service Corps would do this by serving as a catalyst for community-based volunteer programs. For request from a community, the National Service Corps man would go in and provide the skill and energy necessary to solve a locally identified problem. And when the community and its people were able to take over, the Corps would move out and move on. |