I am a community organizer. I have spent my entire working career working in service of non-profits for abused, neglected and special needs children and now doing educational research at the American Printing House for the Blind. I also work directly in my community organizing events to make the quality of life a bit better in the relatively small city in which I live.
I am sorely offended and angry by the Republicans begging Americans to come to the service of their country and neighborhoods but then have the nerve to question what a community organizer does.
I'd like to pass on some information to the uneducated Republicans who have dismissed the work of volunteers and community organizers all across the United States.
From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
About 60.8 million people volunteered through or for an organization at
least once between September 2006 and September 2007, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The proportion
of the population who volunteered was 26.2 percent. This 0.5 percentage
point decrease in the volunteer rate follows a decline of 2.1 percentage
points in the prior year. The volunteer rate had held constant at 28.8 per-
cent from 2003 through 2005, after rising slightly from its 2002 level of
27.4 percent.
For distinction's sake here is a wiki regarding the specifics of "community organizing"
That is a large group of people who in the last year alone volunteered their time to do something for the nation. Nearly 30% of United States citizens are volunteers or have volunteered. How can you act as if this is an unimportant act in this country. How can you applaud someone who shrugs his shoulders at the term. Personally this is a term which I feel should be held in as high esteem as military service overseas. To serve is to serve whether it be at home or abroad.
Volunteers and Community Organizers need to unite and make this party of fools aware that as Americans we are to a large degree COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS and damned proud of it.