Barbara Bush’s strongest legacy: volunteerism, unity

“When I thought about all of the social problems that troubled me — crime, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, homelessness — I realized many of our problems would be lessened if more people could read and write. I had found my cause.”

Nearly 30 years ago the first lady of the United States, Barbara Bush, shared the reasoning for why literacy would be the cause of her life in an interview for The Junior League. But years before this interview, years before she was first lady to one president and mother to another, and years before she would put herself on the path to becoming the most prominent literacy advocate of our time, she was a young wife in Midland, Texas with the desire to become a meaningful member of her community.

That young wife would join The Junior League in Midland, where she would help set up and ultimately run the league’s thrift shop, as well as work in hospitals, a nearby children’s school and a church. More important, her work with The Junior League would help ignite a commitment to volunteerism that would last the rest of her life — a commitment culminating in a literacy program that would award tens of millions of dollars in grants.

“My League work certainly helped teach me the importance of volunteerism, the power of teamwork for a cause you care about, and giving back some of what you have received,” she would state in that same 1989 interview. While many people will consider what her legacy will be, it was her deep commitment to volunteerism that offers a few reminders that are just as relevant today as they were in the past.

The first reminder is that community engagement can be the best platform to build women leaders. While the strength and resiliency of communities throughout the country tends to vary, every community faces challenges. For some, it’s confronting the scourge of domestic violence and child abuse.

For others, it’s reversing food insecurity. And some communities can be forced to confront challenges far beyond their control, as Junior Leagues in Texas learned through their work in response to Hurricane Harvey. But every challenge a community faces is also an opportunity for new leaders to emerge.

Another reminder is that in an age where information and ideas move with blinding speed, the value of volunteerism is timeless. Barbara Bush did not create volunteerism. But the work of the woman Newsweek declared “America’s First Volunteer” inspired waves of future volunteers, whether it was her daughter-in-law Laura Bush who continued her own work with The Junior League of Dallas, her granddaughters who have committed to their own volunteerism, the many women over the years who have worked for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, or the millions of women across the country who work to make their communities and world better.

And in a time of undeniable political division, the overwhelming response to Barbara Bush’s passing reminds us that what unites us as a nation is still stronger than what divides us. If you read the statements of President Trump, or former Presidents Obama and Clinton, it becomes clear that the reasons our nation will always cherish Barbara Bush transcend party lines. The fact is we all cherish women who are resilient and intelligent, who live lives defined by decency and humanity, and who are devoted to their family and their country.

The regard that Barbara Bush is eliciting should remind all of us that no one political organization, group, or party has a monopoly on the values we relish. They are human values and American values, exemplified by an extraordinary human, and an extraordinary American.

Maybe the most important reminder is that, a long time ago, Barbara Bush was a woman living in a new place looking to make a difference. In one way or another, for one group or another, for one cause or another, women throughout our country have the capability to be agents of change. And while those women may not make it into the history books, or be eulogized by presidents, they would have earned the greatest legacy—strengthening their communities and country, becoming the leaders they have the potential to be, and making a difference in people’s lives.