In many ways, especially regarding technology, today’s young people should lead their parents and grandparents, Chelsea Clinton told a group of 11thand 12th-graders gathered Friday for Global Youth Service Day.
The daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton moderated a lunch-time panel on health at the Clinton Presidential Center, questioning four students about how their generation’s choices are perceived by people younger and older than themselves.
“My dad joined Twitter 36 hours ago, so I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately,” said Clinton, who is a member of the Clinton Foundation board.
The first time she showed Bill Clinton how YouTube works, “he said, ‘Wow, you can watch all this stuff !’” she told the students.
Helen Hathaway of Mount Saint Mary Academy noted that her dad, while reading a newspaper that morning, told her about University of Arkansas forward Hunter Mickelson transferring to Kansas.
She already knew that, Hatha-was “all over Twitter yesterday.”
“The generation ahead of us sees technology as being geared toward younger kids - it’s our plaything, it’s our toy - but I think it’s a matter of realizing how useful it can be,” Hathaway said.
Young people still have to prove themselves, said Nicholas Barnes, a senior at Parkview High School.
“I think we are working against the older generation to defeat their kind of stereotype that we are all about ourselves and in doing that, we are working to show we are doing stuff for our community,” Barnes said.
Having performed 1,400 hours of community service already, Barnes felt right at home when the group of teens traveled to Arkansas Rice Depot in Little Rock later Friday to help package food and supplies for 950 public schools and food pantries across the state. But Friday marked the first time that Taylor Collins, a junior at Hall High School, had taken part in an event to help others.
“I learned how rewarding it is going to be [to continue volunteering.] It fills your heart with warmth,” she said. And the fact that Chelsea Clinton tagged along to help, “kind of made you look at her more like a normal person. I could tell she’s really into the service stuff she does.”
Clinton joined in boxing rice packages to be sent to food banks. Nearby, other teens put together backpacks of food, snacks and school supplies to be distributed to children at public schools in Arkansas.
The help was appreciated by Rice Depot’s president and chief executive officer, Laura Rhea, who referred to the organization’s motto: “One Arkansan can make a difference in the fight against hunger. Imagine what three million of us can do.”
“The neat thing is over 400,000 individuals are going to receive food from this organization,” Rhea said. “We are amazed at [the students’] energy generated here today and we know the next generation of Arkansans will be fed because these kids will continue to help - that’s the beauty of a day like this.”
For the past three years, Little Rock, the William J. Clinton Foundation and City Year have partnered to sponsor Global Youth Service Day in Little Rock. Knowing that the meaning behind the day’s events wasn’t going unnoticed by the students was a reward in itselffor City Year’s vice president and executive director, Sarah Roberson. The day’s focus on health extended to promoting it and continuing healthful lifestyles through communication, she said.
“We hope they take the knowledge they gained today, the idea of community and the idea of spirit and partnership and take that back to their schools,” Roberson said.
If Barnes has anything to say about it, he and other students will do just that.
“We are the future, so it is up to us to carry on the legacy,” he said between filling boxes with snacks. “I hope everyone stays strong with the mission and keeps focused.”
While the students didfocus on the goal of the day, they didn’t let Clinton get away without asking her if she intended to enter into politics like her parents.
Repeating a statement she’s given to media before when asked the same question, Clinton, who lives in New York City, said she didn’t intend to and that she was grateful to live in a city, state and country where she likes her representatives, but if she ever thought she could make a difference she would have to reconsider.
One student questioned her about the life of a president’s daughter.
“I get that question a lot,” she said. “I don’t know what it is not like to be the president’s daughter, and you all laugh, but I mean that sincerely. I’m incredibly grateful to my parents for the opportunities their choices have given me … It was a great privilege to live history in many ways.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/27/2013