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Big Citizenship: Extended Interview

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Tags: AmeriCorps, volunteering

Alan Khazei is a proponent for national service. He has spent over 20 years trying to build a comprehensive national service system in the United States, which he sees as a pillar of a working democracy. As co-founder of City Year in Boston, which came to be the model for the federal AmeriCorps program, Khazei has helped millions of people help serve their country domestically.

His book, Big Citizenship: How Pragmatic Idealism Can Bring Out the Best in Americawas published this summer. ...

Big Citizenship listen

Listen to this entire show:

Tags: civic involvement, volunteer, service, AmeriCorps, nonfiction, Edward Kennedy

Alan Khazei is author of Big Citizenship, and co-Founder of City Year in Boston, a service organization for young adults that became the model for AmeriCorps, a national service organization started under President Clinton in 1993.

WMNF’s Dawn Morgan Elliott spoke with Khazei about his passion for national service and the start of City Year.

"During the mid-1980’s there was a burgeoning movement around the country at the grassroots level, with a number of people doing different p...