'Youth Summit' keeps spirit of volunteerism alive

Local activists appeared at the follow-up to April's volunteer Summit. The V.I.P. list may not have been as impressive, but the hundreds of activists at this weekend's Penn-sponsored follow-up to Philadelphia's gala April Volunteer Summit attempted to keep the spirit of community service alive. Local leaders and volunteers spent Friday and Saturday giving speeches in the Annenberg Center's Zellerbach Theatre, strategizing in Williams Hall, and, on one occasion, memorializing Princess Diana for her charitable work. The two-day "Alliance for Youth Summit" began on Friday with a series of motivational speeches by local luminaries such as former U.S. Congressman Bill Gray and Mayor Ed Rendell. Gray, now a minister at Philadelphia's Bright Hope Baptist church, delivered the most powerful speech of the evening. After reminiscing about the volunteer spirit he first encountered as a child in North Philadelphia, he thundered that "mountains are moved by people who pick up one rock at a time." Rendell said Philadelphia children are in "crisis" due to poverty and neglect, and he defended the April summit against a "cynical media" which implied that it was "just a big P.R. event." "Well, were they right? Not at all," he said, citing a simultaneous follow-up summit being held in Montgomery County. "I think this [conference] is going to jump-start us again." Several community activists also spoke at the event. White Dog Cafe owner Judy Wicks told the crowd that she's been giving part-time jobs to local 11th and 12th graders for over a decade, awarding a $1,000 scholarship to one student each year. "Because we're a small business we can't afford too much," Wicks explained later. "I have to put my own kids through college." She added that in "interviewing recent college graduates to work at White Dog, I've noticed an increase in people who do community service." "[Community service] is becoming more a part of the fabric of the country," she said. Wicks has kept a high-profile to promote her model of business volunteerism, representing the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce at the April summit and speaking at Zellerbach over the weekend. Although Wicks and other conference participants networked enthusiastically during the Saturday workshops, enthusiasm waned towards the end of Friday's program. At the end of Rendell's speech, delegates began to steadily file out of Zellerbach while organizations such as Coopers & Lybrand and the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council made presentations to the mayor. By the end of the presentations, fewer than half the delegates remained. Rendell then dedicated a "Commemorative Pledge Book" to the late Princess Diana. "She was a champion of the poor, the disadvantaged, and the disabled around the world," he said. The speech by Jeffrey Lane, who accepted the pledge book on behalf of Diana's official London trust, was the longest of the evening.

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