A Call to Service in Times Square

Today in New York's Times Square an all-star cast gathered, but this time there was no red carpet in sight. Entertainment industry folk — the likes of Bernadette Peters, Fran Drescher, Tim Daly, Michelle Trachtenberg and Randy Jackson — and other luminaries such as Caroline Kennedy and Katie Couric  joined the mayors of 15 U.S. Cities to launch two new initiatives meant to ring in a new era of American volunteer engagement.

If I've said it once I've said it a million times: nothing motivates rich and famous people better than the idea of volunteer work.

Anyway, ever since we got some big-time encouragement from our president, everybody's been taking the matter much more seriously. And now, the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) is launching a program called I PARTICIPATE and mayors are joining together to create the "Cities of Service" coalition, according to an EIF press release.

The I PARTICIPATE campaign will try to get Americans thinking of service in new ways and encourage people to get involved. To kick it off, a weeklong television event airing October 19 to 25 will spotlight volunteerism on TV shows on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC.

Cities of Service brings together mayors of large and small cities in an effort to engage Americans in voluntary service in response to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act's call to action.

"Today is an exciting day for service in America," said New York's Mayor Bloomberg.

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