Cutting Through Politics: The Importance of Service

About This Episode

What can we do when politicians prefer polarizing rhetoric to concrete action? We can roll up our sleeves and serve those who need help. Meaningful service can be the antidote to disappointing political paralysis. In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, two longtime leaders in service, Michael Brown of City Year and Boston chef Jason Santos (Buttermilk and Bourbon) talk with host and Share Our Strength founder and CEO Billy Shore about why it is so important to ‘turn on your social justice nerve’ and ‘flex your service muscle.’ Michael founded City Year in 1988 in Boston and grew it to a national service program of 3,100 18-25 year olds improving academic performance in high-poverty, poor performing schools in 28 cities. “Service is part of the American spirit… it is at the very heart of how we perceive ourselves as a nation,“ he declares. Jason began volunteering with Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign more than 20 years ago as a very young chef, and since then has taught many Cooking Matters courses, been inducted into the Cooking Matters Hall of Fame, and raised an impressive amount of money for the campaign. “I have to do my part to help fix something that, in 2017, still blows me away that it’s such a problem,” he says. Listen to how these leaders use service to cut through politics and give themselves and others the gratifying experience of serving others.