Five hours of community service equal to one tall coffee

By Owen Morris in News

How much is community service worth to you? How about prison-like-wages of 35 cents per hour? That's the cost of giving five hours to community service in exchange for one free tall coffee from Starbucks ($1.75).

Customers who fill out cards in Starbucks' stores pledging to volunteer five hours of time will receive one free tall coffee today through Sunday.

It's part of Starbucks' plan to get in on Obama's inauguration good vibes. They've teamed up with the HandsOn Network in an effort to "raise pledges in excess of one million hours of service from all over the country." HandsOn has a bunch of recommendations on its Web site, ranging from "Make New Kids on the Block survival kits" which are packages for new children in the neighborhood that have stuff like welcome cards, school calenders, maps of places to go and school supplies, etc. More involved work includes a self-organizing kit. (Warning! Zip File.)

While I am not always a big fan of Starbucks initiatives I do like the HandsOn Network and let's face it-- if anyone in this country has the time and money to give to community service, it's people who can still afford Starbucks. A free tall coffee may seem stingy but the coffee is not the point. It's just a way to get people invested the way you use doughnuts to get people to come to boring but important meetings. There's even a special Web site called Pledge Five for people to track their hours and encourage their friends to volunteer.

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to give more to my community and knowing that I've got some free coffee coming just makes that resolution a little creamier. (I would have said sweeter but I don't take sugar in my coffee.)

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