A City Year: On the Streets and in the Neighborhoods With Twelve Young Community Service Volunteers [Hardcover]

Suzanne Goldsmith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1993

Suzanne Goldsmith, a young Harvard-educated reporter, signed on for a year of service with City Year, the widely praised, Boston-based community service program frequently endorsed by President Clinton as a model for the nation. A City Year is the story of that year-an honest and gritty account of the triumphs and setbacks faced by an idealistic and experimental social program in its infancy.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

An inspiring yet disheartening account of an eclectic team of ``urban peace corps'' workers who spent nine months in service to the city of Boston. City Year is a Boston-based nonprofit group that recruits young people to put in a year of community service before they move on to shape their adult lives. At first privately funded, the organization has since received a multimillion-dollar federal grant to serve as a pilot program for the ``season of service'' called for by President Clinton. City Year's workers represent Boston's diverse population: black, Hispanic, white, Oriental; college students and high-school dropouts; stable middle-class kids and those who have ping-ponged among foster families. Goldsmith (director of a Washington, D.C., community service project) joined a City Year team in 1990 and, here, reports on her experience honestly and intimately. Her team members were so mismatched that they called themselves ``the Misfits''--among them numbered a beautiful black woman who was a West Point dropout; men who'd had brushes with the law; an Oriental woman disoriented by cultural shock; and a former peace-worker. The group returned to Boston to begin its service: restoring a community garden and playground; rebuilding a greenhouse at a mental hospital; assisting in elementary-school classrooms; renovating homeless housing; and organizing a community cleanup. Two months into the work, one member was shot dead outside his home--no motive and no killer were ever found. Others dropped out or couldn't maintain the strict discipline the program demanded, but some of those who finished went on to make their lives in service--although, Goldsmith says, the program in many ways failed people who joined as a last resort or with few resources behind them. An optimistic but realistic assessment of a program that serves as model for a national-service ideal but that may not survive the next round of Congressional budget cuts. (Photos) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

Suzanne Goldsmith writes with a rare combination of hope in the ideals of public service and realism about the lives of young people in tough circumstances. The characters she brings to life in A City Year can serve us as the most vivid possible reminders of why we are embarking on the most ambitious national service program in our history. -- Nicholas Lemmon, author of "The Promised Land"

The best book ever-written from the trenches-on what it is like to volunteer, by a keen observer and storywriter. -- Amitai Etzioni, author of "The Spirit of Community"

The rich and detailed personal narrative is framed by a reflective appreciation of the past and future of voluntary commitment to America's communities. -- New England Nonprofit Quarterly

Product Details

• Hardcover: 284 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (October 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565840933
• ISBN-13: 978-1565840935
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #891,684 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Realistic Portrayal of the City Year Experience, August 22, 1998

By 

Anonymous - See all my reviews

This review is from: A City Year: On the Streets and in the Neighborhoods With Twelve Young Community Service Volunteers (Hardcover)

I was a corpsmember in City Year the year after Suzanne Goldsmith. Her book was almost like reading my own thoughts on my experiences. The reviews from the newspapers are harsh, saying that her book seemed very negative. However, what most people fail to realize is that City Year is not an easy year of service, and Goldsmith really shows that. I will admit that her experiences with her team were especially demanding, and most likely contributed to the down feeling of the book. I wish that she could have written more about how this year affected the corpsmembers after leaving. In my own experience, the lessons learned from City Year are the most precious. I really enjoyed reading Suzanne Goldsmith's book and I believe that those wanting to learn more about this amazing program will get a real insight to the problems that americorps volunteers face. It's not an easy book to read, it's often hard to keep track of all the different characters, and the book is overwhelmed with emotions. The lessons learned and the realistic feel of the year of service, however, make it worth reading even with the faults.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really amazing piece of work (that involved a lot of amazing work!), January 8, 2009

By 

Robin Thomas (Oxford, OH USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A City Year: On the Streets and in the Neighborhoods With Twelve Young Community Service Volunteers (Hardcover)

I, as well, am a recent City Year graduate, having served in New Hampshire during the '07-'08 year. This was an incredible book to read after having completed a City Year. It is brutally honest about the difficulties involved in a year of service, but I disagree with the opinion that the book is too depressing and joyless. There's a lot of hope to be seen in the journey taken by the City Year team described in Goldsmith's work. It's important to look beyond the fact that some team members may have dropped out; what's really important is that they took the initiative to start a year of service, that they gave up their old habits for so long, that none of them left that year unchanged. It's plain to see that everyone who does City Year gains a lot of unquantifiable things.

That's what I remember most from last year -- the positive impact you have on the world is much more subtle and much more difficult to see than negative things that might happen. But they are always so much more profound, and go so much farther. This book is an illustration of the incredible power of service.

I was blown away by how similar early City Year was compared to modern-day City Year. The organization has changed so much, its size has grown and its personality has as well in so many ways.

Americorps deserves a lot more credit than it gets. A soldier is honorable, putting their life on the line out of love for their country their people. But as is pointed out in this book, those who undertake a year of Americorps service not only occasionally literally put their lives on the line, they invariably sacrifice a hefty part of themselves to become changed for the better and make a difference in the world. They use no weapons, and often times volunteers don't even use money. They never kill. They only protect and preserve.

I recommend this book to anyone because it's a picture of the changing face of our nation, and accurately portrays the world of service.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not just "kids" serving our community, August 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A City Year: On the Streets and in the Neighborhoods with Twelve Young Community Service Volunteers (Paperback)

I am a recent City Year graduate from Chicago and I read Suzanne's book in the beginning of my City Year experience. Even though there is a five year difference in our corpmember experiences, her's being in the very beginning of City Year's exsistance. She tells the truth of how City Year can Help you and hurt you. It's Very hard work and having the story being portrayed from the earlier days of City Year, it's gotten even harder now. Personally I'm glad I did it. Proven we are not just "kids" serving our community but adults making our way in the world.