It's looking increasingly likely that large swaths of the federal government will shutter its doors come Friday at midnight. Next week, federal workers will not be allowed to report for work even if they want to. Many government contractors will be on leave, too. And they can't skip town, because as soon as Congress resolves the issue they will be expected to return.
Which means that, come Monday, there will be hundreds of thousands of highly-educated, Type-A federal staffers sitting in Washington-area living rooms and coffee shops, twiddling their fingers. Just imagine how much good work they could do if some smart social entrepreneurs figured out how to connect even a fraction of them to short-term volunteer opportunities in local schools and other non-profit organizations. Here are the sorts of things they could do:
- Beautification projects at local public, private, and charter schools
- Strategic planning and other consulting engagements for charter school boards
- Financial analysis of local schools' budgets in light of the need to "do more with less"
- Routine maintenance and software updates for school computers
Surely there are many, many other useful tasks needing doing, and there's little doubt that many (bored) federal workers would jump at the chance to contribute their time. So who is game for organizing it?
-Mike Petrilli
