At the April 21 city council meeting, resident Denny Miller had someone to blame for part of the Festival of Light’s current situation — the young people.
Miller, who helped with the Festival of Lights initially, said it is time for the young people to turn off the TV, get off their couch and volunteer in their community.
“You’ve got to step up to the plate,” he said.
Miller added that he volunteered at a school carnival over the weekend because a relative told him they could not find enough help.
“I shouldn’t have to,” he said.
While we agree that the more young people who volunteer the better, volunteerism does not end at a certain age — nor should it be assigned to one age group.
In a family situation, it is understandable when grandma and grandpa no longer want to host the Thanksgiving meal because it is too stressful. In this instance, the next generation often takes over the family tradition.
However, when it comes to the community, there are all ages of volunteers.
Grade and high-school children are involved in projects, such as building things in the community for an Eagle Scout badge or helping pick up litter in the city.
The question is: What changed within the volunteer base in the 25 years since the Festival of Lights’ inception? Maybe it simply has run its course.
One reason for a decline in volunteerism is there may be more single-parent families than there were 25 years ago. This makes it tough for a single mother or father to find a baby sitter in order to volunteer; however, if children are above toddler age, they, too, could get involved. It is a great life lesson to teach a child, and it is still quality time spent together.
Maybe another reason young people are not volunteering as much in East Peoria is that they are moving away for school or a job.
Every community is surely different when it comes to youth and volunteerism.
In an article by The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, a graph from 2002 shows those 15 to 25 volunteering about 10 percent more than all other age groups; in fact, this young group is depicted as volunteering higher than the national average.
While people have claimed that the younger generation today is more of a “me” generation, there are articles that say the exact opposite.
According to an article by Christopher Quinn in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, some claim the majority of Americans born about 1982 and beyond are spoiled, distracted, obsessed with technology and dependent on their parents. However, what is less often heard are the ways this group does volunteer, such as during the aftermath of 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina.
In this article, Darell Hammond, head of a company that builds playgrounds, said young people today have energy and ambition and they want results immediately.
We wonder why we are not seeing more of this “jump right in and get things done attitude” among young people and the Festival of Lights in East Peoria. We hope it is not that they only want to volunteer on a larger scale — on those projects that are in the limelight.
We all need to do our small part to make the communities we live in a better place.
East Peoria, Ill. —
