The Next L.A. / Reinventing Our Future : Community : IDEA FILE: Community Service

How it works

Employers offer workers the opportunity to take one paid day off a month to work in the service of their communities. The strictly voluntary program could be anything: volunteering in the local library; helping elderly people in the neighborhood; working on a community newsletter or building project; doing some kind of organizing of the residents in a large apartment building. Your employer would have to know what it was but there should be a lot of latitude over what is “approved” community work.

Benefits

The neighborhood gets the energetic, unbegrudged work of people who don’t have to sacrifice money or time to do it. It would become as much a part of civic life as jury duty.

Short- or long-term impact?

People suddenly get to know their communities.

Supporters

Everybody! Except . . .

Opponents

Employers, who would likely complain about lost work time. But most companies are constantly donating huge sums of money to causes. (Just open any newspaper in the wake of any L.A. disaster and read the self-congratulatory fullpage ads how much money this store or company has given to the relief effort.) Why not give some employees to a long-term rebuilding effort? Each employer and each volunteer agency would have to handle the paperwork.

The costs

Companies would lose work hours and would determine how many employee-hours they could afford to donate. But tax breaks could be be structured as incentives for companies, just as they are now when firms donate money to charities.

Reality Check

It could happen here. Companies--big companies with high civic profiles especially--would look churlish for refusing to take part in a program promoted by the mayor and others. Maybe.