On Wed, 30 Apr 1997, Tod Engine wrote:

> Was any of the volunteerism summit in Philadelphia aimed toward getting
> people to volunteer for anything other than assisting "disadvantaged
> youths"?   Are cultural institutions not as important as organizations helping the
> disadvantaged?

Well the good news is that the summit organizers did in fact finally
recognize what museums are doing with respect to services to youth and
so, somewhat belatedly but we're not complainging, they invited AAM to
send an official representative to the summit.

Irene Hirano, director of the Japanese American National Museum in Los
Angeles, attended on our behalf.  Also, at least two children's museum
people made it on to their local delegations to the summit.  I know of
one opera person and one symphony person -- American Library Association
was not aware of any library delegates.

Irene reports -- big surprise -- that she talked to a lot of mayors and
governors and generally speaking they have no idea of what we do and of
how we relate to community issues, including service to youth.  And
indeed, there were several rather nasty references to cultural
organizations in the national press -- basically, that we're sites for
"recreational" volunteering, that we're not serious, etc., etc.  So,
obviously, we have our work cut out for us.

There is going to be a followup organization -- I think it's called
Alliance for Youth -- to which Colin Powell has pledged his service until
2000 -- we appear to be well-positioned to have some input.

Andy Finch
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AAM Government Affairs