Commentary: A volunteer corps would help whole community

This column has elicited a response from a wonderful woman. She has written to me twice and I recently met her at a community meeting. I see her letters to the editor frequently and am struck by their clarity and thoughtfulness.

Her name is Nikki Campbell and she is a 92-year-old retiree from Los Angeles, where she had worked most of her professional life for Los Angeles County Social Services with the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.

Ms. Campbell wrote to me about an idea she had about using people like her to help state and county governments during this very difficult economic decline to mitigate the increased workload of public employees.

She makes the argument that there are many retired professionals in Carson City who still have much to offer and would like to once again be productive and serve the community.

There are numerous volunteer services that involve corporate executives, big brothers and sisters, feeding programs and other child advocate volunteers. These are all positive efforts.

What I would like to suggest is something a bit different - a community volunteer corps in which youth, unemployed adults and retirees with special skills would all undergo training, would be placed with businesses and community organizations, and would be paid a stipend and work for a specific time period. The volunteers, businesses and the community would all benefit. Some states are already planning such volunteers corps.

President Obama has talked about a community volunteer corps. The governor, state, legislative and business leaders should contact the Obama administration to see if there are federal stimulus funds available for such efforts.

We have high unemployment, a large number of youth who want to learn and work, unemployed adults and retirees who are skilled and willing to be productive again in our immediate community. We have a state-of-the-art local college that is quite capable of educating and training a community volunteer corps. There are many opportunities in businesses and government for people to work and make contributions.

It's time for us to be proactive rather than just complain about the government. We have examples of leadership like Ms. Campbell. There are many others. We also have some former Peace Corps volunteers in the area who might be able to assist.

Let's take advantage of the skill sets in our community and see if we can work together with the administration to help the economy, our community and ourselves.

• Dr. Eugene T. Paslov, former Nevada Superintendent of Schools, is a board member for Silver State Charter School.