During the War of 1812, thousands of Tennesseans stepped forward to defend their country at the Battle of New Orleans, earning Tennessee the nickname, “The Volunteer State.”

 Almost two centuries later, Tennessee may not be living up to its title.

According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, Tennessee currently stands at No. 38 in the country’s most active volunteer states.

 It’s not just Tennessee that has seen a decrease in the participation of its citizens. “Between 2006 and 2008, the average national volunteer rate was 26.4 percent per year,” states volunteeringinamerica.gov.

 On a national television broadcast in June, President Barack Obama announced the “United We Serve” campaign, “a nationwide initiative…to create a sustained, collaborative, and focused effort to meet community needs and make service a way of life for all Americans,” according to serve.gov.

“Economic recovery is as much about what you’re doing in your communities as what we’re doing in Washington — and it’s going to take all of us, working together. I’m calling on all Americans to make volunteering and community service part of your daily life and the life of this nation,” he said.

The United We Serve campaign was originally designed to exist for 81 days, beginning June 22 and ending Sept. 11 in a national day of service honoring those who died in the terrorist attacks eight years ago.  Still, the President has encouraged volunteer initiatives to continue across the country throughout the year.

How is the Volunteer State responding to the President’s initiative?  And more specifically, how is Nashville, the state’s capital, responding?

Nashville’s largest non-profit organization, Hands On Nashville, has seen a 30 percent increase in its volunteer pool this year, reaching a record 34,000 volunteers.  Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee has seen a 50 percent increase in its volunteer rates since last year.

 Second Harvest’s volunteer pool is contingent upon the amount of food being packaged and sent out to hungry families.  The greater the demand, the greater the need for volunteers to pack food boxes.  With the rising unemployed population, Second Harvest’s services have been in high demand this year.

“In our recession it’s more prevalent on everyone’s minds that everyone is hitting hard times right now.  Before, people thought the face of hunger was so far removed from everyone.  Now it’s the people next door, the people at church, the people you run into on a daily basis,” said Meghan Markie, Volunteer Services Manager at Second Harvest.

While she greatly attributes Second Harvest’s rise in volunteerism to this newly acquired sense of neighborliness, Markie also acknowledges the President’s campaign.

“I do think that when the government and the United States get behind an idea like this, just from the volunteers we’ve had from the United We Serve campaign, it has been phenomenal,” she said. “It allows us to reach out to a demographic we haven’t been able to before.  Whether it is one person or a thousand, it’s worth it.  Awareness is everyone’s cause,” Markie said.

Hands On Nashville appreciates the President’s campaign but views it as more of an “attention on volunteerism than anything,” said Lisa Davis, director of external affairs.

“For a lot of the United We Serve legislation there hasn’t been funding that has been allocated for Hands On Nashville,” she said.

 Funding would provide people and resources for the organization to assist it in creating more opportunities for people to get involved volunteering.

 “We hope to see more funding going that way in the future,” Davis said.  “Mostly what we see right now is a focus on volunteerism and a direction toward more involvement.”

United We Serve may lean more heavily on awareness than action, but any public focus on volunteerism is positive for non-profits, Davis said.

Perhaps a greater champion for local change than the President’s campaign is a recently formed coalition of mayors from across the country called Cities of Service.

Begun by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in September, Cities of Service exists to connect “mayors of large and small cities from across our country who will work together to engage citizens to address the great challenges of our time,” according to citiesofservice.org.

 Currently, the coalition has 41 members, including Nashville Mayor Karl Dean.  Furthermore, Nashville recently hired a city official in conjunction with Cities of Service to “come up with a master plan for volunteerism,” Davis said.
 Hands On Nashville and other local non-profits see Cities of Service as a promising opportunity to see a dramatic uprising of volunteerism in Nashville.  While HON and Second Harvest are both experiencing a year of harvest in their volunteer pools, overall Nashville is backsliding in its volunteerism.  Last year was a record low for volunteering in Nashville, the city boasting a mere 19 percent involvement among adults.  

Yet initiatives like United We Serve and Cities of Service have the capacity to change this.

“Nashville is motivating around the idea of what we can do as a community to solve problems,” Davis said.

 “We are very interested in what the plan is for our city and how to be a part of it beyond just United We Serve.  With Cities of Service, hopefully we will be a part of Nashville’s comprehensive plan to meet the needs of the community.”