“Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends – hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. ”

–President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address

I, like many of you, am celebrating today. But it is this part of his speech* which is staying with me today. It’s not enough now to simply celebrate beyond today; there’s a lot of work to be done by each and every proud citizen to answer for what we gave chosen today, to prve that we mean change. We’re going to have to put our backs into it.

And here’s where start paying…in sweat:**

Volunteermatch

Idealist dot org

Volunteer dot gov

Network for good

More money than time?

* I hope that the speechwriter that worked on the first draft of the speech gets a big, fat bonus.

** That’s right. I slipped in a Fame ref.