As you might expect, President Ronald Reagan was the recipient of thousands of letters each month during his presidency. In fact, he received so much mail that a gang of patient volunteers were tasked with opening them all on his behalf and passing approximately 30 letters each week to the president for him to read and respond to. In one case, a letter from 13-year-old Andy Smith made its way to the president’s desk. Andy identified himself as a 7th grade student at Irmo Middle School in Irmo, South Carolina. His letter went on to explain that his mother had declared his bedroom a disaster area and he was requesting federal funds to hire a crew to clean it. In response, President Reagan pointed out that 1984 had been a year of 539 hurricanes, numerous floods, forest fires, drought in Texas, and a number of earthquakes. As a result, the government’s funds were getting dangerously low. Then he made a suggestion to Andy: “This Administration, believing that government has done many things that could better be done by volunteers at the local level, has sponsored a Private Sector Initiative Program, calling upon people to practice voluntarism in the solving of a number of problems.” The president went on to say that he believed Andy was in an excellent position to launch another volunteer program. The moral of this story is: Don’t ask the government to do for you what you can do for yourself.
