Clete Eilerman dishes up dessert at the Holy Family soup kitchen, where he has been volunteering for 14 years.
A recession can inspire frugality, yes, but also volunteerism, compassion and a shift in priorities.
"If you talk to old people and they talk about the (Great) Depression, they talk in many ways about a very high standard of morality and community support," said the Rev. Kevin Lutz of Holy Family Catholic Church in Franklinton.
Lutz oversees the church's soup kitchen, where the number of donations remains stable and volunteers continue to step up.
"In many ways, hard times bring out the best in people," Lutz said.
The recession is widespread enough -- nearly 10 percent of Ohioans are unemployed -- to cause a national rethinking of priorities, said Charles K. Wilber, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame.
"All the things you see happening to friends makes you reconsider what's important," he said. "Maybe that second car isn't that important, or that new flat-screen television isn't so important. Maybe having dinner with the kids is more valuable."
Some research indicates that unemployment makes people behave worse, increasing problems of crime, abuse and suicide, Wilber said.
But that doesn't seem to be happening in Columbus this year. Reports of theft and aggravated assault were down in the first four months of the year, compared with the previous three years, according to statistics from the Police Division. Vehicle thefts and suicides were down, too.
The number of domestic-violence reports from January through May 1 was higher than the same periods in 2006 and 2007 but down 323 from last year.
Americans are realizing they have to support one another, despite the culture's traditional emphasis on independence, said Shari Stone-Mediatore, a professor of philosophy who teaches ethics at Ohio Wesleyan University.
"For a long time, a lot of middle-class Americans have been able to insulate themselves from social problems and go about their lives not having to think about the people in their community who are suffering," she said.
"The recession makes us all think of our vulnerability."
Across the country, nonprofits and volunteer organizations are seeing a "compassion boom," said Sandy Scott, a spokesman for the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency.
The most-recent numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that 26.4 percent of Americans volunteered at least once between September 2007 and September 2008.
A Web site that matches volunteers with service opportunities, www.serve.gov, has been seeing more traffic. From April 2008 through the end of last month, the number of people searching for volunteer opportunities increased 128 percent, Scott said.
Applications to AmeriCorps, the government-subsidized domestic-service program, increased 230 percent in the past six months over the same period last year. Part of the increase is because of unemployed people looking for work, but part reflects a public enthusiasm about service, Scott said.
Dublin stay-at-home mom Amy Proctor works once a month in the Salvation Army food pantry at the East Main Street Worship and Service Center.
"The recession has definitely made us all feel like we have to do more," she said.
The recession should challenge the sense of entitlement that so many Americans have, Stone-Mediatore said.
"When there's less to go around, all of us need to think about how we can share more," she said.
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