National Character Counts Week, 1998

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Part III

The President

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Proclamation 7141--National Character Counts Week, 1998

Proclamation 7142--National Forest Products Week, 1998

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Title 3--
The President

Proclamation 7141 of October 16, 1998

National Character Counts Week, 1998

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

As Americans, we are a people full of hope, confident
in our capacity to make life better for ourselves and
others. We look forward to the promise of the future,
and we have high goals for the 21st century: to remain
the world's leading force for peace, freedom,
prosperity, and security; to keep the American Dream
alive for everyone willing to work for it; to come
together across lines of race, religion, and other
individual differences to become one America. But
everything we hope to accomplish depends, as it always
has, on the hearts and minds of the American people.

One of the greatest building blocks of character is
citizen service. We must do more as individuals and as
a society to encourage all Americans--especially our
young people--to share their time, skills, enthusiasm,
and energy with their communities. Whether we teach
children to read, mentor young people, work at a food
bank or homeless shelter, or care for people living
with AIDS, citizen service calls forth the best from
each of us. It builds a sense of community, compassion,
acceptance of others, and a willingness to do the right
thing--all hallmarks of character.

We can take great pride today in the numbers of
energetic, idealistic Americans who are participating
in service activities across our country and around the
world. Almost 90,000 young men and women have served
their communities through AmeriCorps during the past 4
years, tutoring students, mentoring children, building
homes, fighting drug abuse. Through our America Reads
initiative, Americans of all ages are volunteering
their time to help children learn to read independently
by the end of the third grade. Through Learn and Serve
America, the Corporation for National and Community
Service encourages America's schools to add service
learning to their curricula so that all students--from
kindergarten through graduate school--can develop their
character, skills, and self-confidence while making
their own unique contributions to the life of their
communities. In the National Senior Service Corps and
the Peace Corps, in religious, school, community, and
charitable organizations, Americans strengthen the
character of our Nation by volunteering to improve the
quality of life for their fellow human beings. During
National Character Counts Week, let us reaffirm to our
children that the future belongs to those who have the
strength of character to live a life of service to
others.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United
States, do hereby proclaim October 18 through October
24, 1998, as National Character Counts Week. I call
upon the people of the United States, government
officials, educators, religious, community, and
business leaders, and the States to commemorate this
week with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and
programs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
sixteenth day of October, in the year of our Lord
nineteen hundred and ninety-eight, and of the
Independence of the United States of America the two
hundred and twenty-third.