By donating some of their time to community service, Missouri students can earn tickets to the presidential debate hosted by Washington University.

The John Kerry campaign is running the “Call to Service-Presidential Debate Project” to encourage students to engage with their community. Through the program, the two Missouri students who complete and log the most community service hours between Wednesday, Aug. 11 and Thursday, Sept. 30 will earn tickets to the debate Oct. 8.

“This contest is a wonderful way to get Missouri college students excited about public service and our democratic process,” said Congressman William Lacy Clay, a sponsor of the project.

Former Senator Jean Carnahan also emphasized the importance of student interest and involvement in the election.

“As we enter the final phase of the campaign, this is a terrific opportunity to motivate more young people to get involved in both public service and the political process,” said Carnahan, reinforcing Clay’s statement.

Michael Golden, Missouri communications director for the Kerry-Edwards campaign, concurred, asserting that the more students are involved in their respective communities, the more they will care about who creates policy for those communities.

In response to news that President Bush might pull out of the debate, Golden said that he was “disappointed” and that it would be “a real shame” if the debate were to be cancelled. He said that the debate was “a good opportunity to get involved,” and that cancelling the debate would “deprive the students of that opportunity.”

He further mentioned that this campaign is about discussion of the issues and that cancellation of the debate would deprive voters of the opportunity to learn about those issues.

Stephanie Kurtzman, the University’s community service director, said that the University must be particularly careful about supporting partisan events. While the Office of Student Activies encourages community service, it cannot support the “Call to Service” project because the University is non-partisan, and the project is being run by the Democratic party.

As yet, the University has had no inquiries regarding the “Call to Service” program from students.

There is a wide variety of service opportunities on campus available to students. They include everything from Relay for Life, which helps raise money for cancer research, to Big Brothers, Big Sisters, which allows a student to act as a mentor for a younger child; from STONE Soup, which provides food and toiletries to St. Louis residents, to Teach ESL, which allows students to teach English as a second language.

Information regarding community service opportunities can be found on the University’s community service webpage, available at http://getinvolved.wustl.edu/service.

In order to participate in the contest, students must be enrolled in a two or four year college institution in the state of Missouri, whether public or private. Forms, available at http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/kerry_mo.pdf, are due by noon on Sept. 30. Judgement regarding allocation of tickets is based solely upon the number of hours completed and logged by the student.

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