ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY FOUNDATION, MAYORS FROM ALL OVER THE U.S. KICK OFF TWO MAJOR INITIATIVES ENCOURAGING VOLUNTEERISM

Today in the heart of Times Square, actors and executives representing the Entertainment Industry Foundation (or EIF, the entertainment community’s collective charitable organization) joined New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and 15 mayors from around the country, numerous celebrities, and key service groups to launch two new initiatives aimed at fostering a new era of volunteerism: EIF’s I PARTICIPATE and the mayors’ Cities of Service coalition.

EIF is mobilizing the entire entertainment community around the ground-breaking, multi-year I PARTICIPATE, which will promote a new way of thinking about service [emphasis mine] and seek to persuade millions more Americans to volunteer regularly.* To jumpstart the campaign, Entertainment Industry President and CEO Lisa Paulsen, Tyler Perry and Ashton Kutcher announced its 2009 centerpiece: a week-long television event running from October 19th to the 25th, when America’s most-loved TV shows on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC and other broadcast networks will spotlight service through scripted programming, segments and PSAs with inspirational messages and storylines about volunteerism. Randy Jackson (FOX), Christine Baranski (CBS), Tim Daly (ABC) and Michelle Trachtenberg (NBC) also participated in the announcement.

“…which will promote a new way of thinking about service…”

TRANSLATION: “Voluntary Service” will soon mean “Compulsory Duty.” If you notice, even the above phrase subtlety omits the word “voluntary” before the word “service.”
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*What’s “regularly”? Will the government soon set guidelines as to what is considered “regularly”? You can bet on it.