ABSTRACT
City Year began as an idea shared by Alan Khazei and Michael Brown, friends at Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Between college and law school, Alan worked as field director ror presidential candidate Gary Hart in his home state of New Hampshire; Hart had made national service part of his campaign platform. Michael worked to help launch the City Volunteer Corps in New York in 1984. He also worked on Capitol Hill as an aide to Congressman Leon Panetta of California, who sponsored an early, and unsuccessful, national service bill. Both young men had a longstanding desire to help promote social justice and were uninterested in joining corporate law firms when they finished school as so many of their classmates were planning to do. After law school they wanted to do something that would make a difference. They began talking about how they could help make national service a reality.
