Penn to serve as sponsor of Presidents' Summit

Penn will be the sole university sponsor at the April 25-27 event. With Provost Stanley Chodorow at his side, Mayor Ed Rendell announced the corporate and non-profit sponsors for the upcoming Presidents' Summit on community service yesterday, naming Penn as the only university to contribute to the event. Rendell noted that the conference --Escheduled for April 27-29 --Ewill bring "a lot of hoopla, a lot of excitement and a lot of fun" to Philadelphia. The summit, which is designed to increase the amount of community service nationwide by the turn of the century, includes delegates from 140 cities. President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, as well as former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and George Bush, have all agreed to participate in the humanitarian event. Retired Gen. Colin Powell will serve as the event's chairperson, while television personality Oprah Winfrey will be its mistress of ceremonies. Chodorow pointed to University President Judith Rodin's collaboration with President Clinton's America Reads literacy initiative, and pledged "half of [Penn's] new workstudy funds and students to that project which will double the number of Penn students engaged" in the program. During yesterday's press conference, the five corporate sponsors and three non-profit sponsors outlined their individual plans for accomplishing the summit's five goals. The goals include giving children a "healthy start," a safe and warm place for after-school activities, providing a mentoring relationship with an adult, fostering "marketable job skills through effective education" and establishing programs that allow young kids to "give back to their community" through community service." Rendell added that the conference aims to reverse "the destiny of 2 million young Americans? who are trapped in what appears to them to be hopeless, cheerless lives." Stressing that the summit "isn't government," Rendell introduced the Philadelphia-based sponsors as a "combination of the very best of the private sector." He added that the representatives are only the start of a long list of "over 75 major corporate pledges and over 100 non-profit pledges" that he hopes to present April 28. "Philadelphia is not only going to host events? but we are going to lead the way in putting together a Philadelphia pledge book that will be a model for the other 140 cities and 50 states to follow," Rendell said. Representatives from the corporate sponsors --Ewhich include such companies as SmithKline Beecham, the Comcast Corporation and CoreStates -- spoke at the conference and explained their companies' contributions to the summit. Comcast CEO Ralph Roberts said his corporation will provide high-speed modems to 250 public libraries across the country, as well as 1 million hours of free Internet usage and volunteers to teach children to use the new technology as their donation to the event. He explained that such knowledge is vital to children's education, adding that "there has been a gigantic explosion of technology in the communication world." And as he announced the summit's non-profit sponsors, Rendell praised the University, noting that "[Penn] does so much on a day-in, day-out basis already for the people of West Philadelphia and the people of the entire city of Philadelphia." And Chodorow added that Penn has a"multi-faceted pledge to the summit." "The University of Pennsylvania is one of the leaders among higher education institutions in providing community service activities," he said. Outlining the University's plan to "contribute to all five of the summit goals," Chodorow said Penn has the ability to sponsor community service activities such as the summit because of the range of its "activities and the size of student body and workforce." "[The University] is committing itself in specific ways to increase the numbers of faculty, students, staff and alumni involved in one-to-one mentoring in peer and community health education activities and in school to work programs," he said. Chodorow also pledged Penn's promise to "develop and expand safe places and structured activities for children during non-school hours." "We are delighted to make these contributions regarded by [Penn] as critical to our mission as an educational institution," Chodorow said.