Scott Dickensheets: Harnessing youth for greater good

By Scott Dickensheets

Friday, Oct. 22, 2010 | 2 a.m.

This can be a cold town. Las Vegas tops no one’s list of humane places. Just the opposite, mostly: “That glittering Shangri-La of cynical exploitation,” writer A.A. Gill once put it; not “a real city,” J.R. Moehringer notoriously announced in October’s Smithsonian magazine. Tom Bissell, in a recent book about video games, ducked off-topic long enough to call Las Vegas “the world’s whore.”

Ouch, yes. But unfair? No, not entirely. From the remorseless cash-extraction ethos of the Strip to the every-man-for-himself mentality that simmers below the surface of our civic life, Las Vegas offers plenty of reasons to be ambivalent about the city and its problems. Many of us don’t fight it.

London Porter does. Don’t serve up that “there’s no community here” line to him.

“When people tell me that, I tell them, one, make a change, or two, show me your favorite city and we’ll get you a one-way ticket,” says Porter, who works in the H.R. department of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. “We need solution-oriented people here.”

Porter, 36, is a member of the United Way’s Young Philanthropists Society. It is a year-old effort to organize solution-oriented people under age 40 into a “force to make lasting change,” says Nikki Giroux, 29, the group’s co-chairwoman. And perhaps imbue the next wave of community leaders with a strong giveback ethic.

There’s a steep buy-in — $1,500 for a general membership, $2,500 for executive — and an expectation that you’ll do more than passively burnish the community-service portion of your resume.

The fee isn’t scaring the serious ones away. “We’re being told we’re in the midst of the greatest recession since the Great Depression,” Giroux says, “and we’re already 84 members strong. The goal is in the hundreds.”

Philanthropy. The term comes with a whiff of noblesse oblige, doesn’t it? “An aristocratic old lady in her library, writing checks,” says the other co-chairman, Joe Micatrotto, 35, president of Micatrotto Restaurant Group (Raising Cane’s). “We want to redefine what philanthropy is to people in their 20s, 30s and 40s.”

If you’re a young career builder, then, what he means is this: “I know you’re busting your butts to get ahead, to increase your income level, to make your mark on the town. But to really make your mark, you got to give back.”

For now, the Young Philanthropists Society is focusing on a definite area of need, education. They’ve filled and donated backpacks to schoolchildren. Most recently, the society adopted Howard Hollingsworth Elementary School and, before the cold weather gets here, set up a coat drive. An e-mail blast and three weeks later, they’ve gathered 250 jackets, “with plenty more anticipated,” Giroux says.

Of course, the Young Philanthropists aren’t the only ones working toward lasting change. It’s one of many groups large and small — from the Nevada Cancer Institute to the Straight from the Streets homeless program; from the Three Square food charity to the Contemporary Arts Center — trying to answer the question: Who gives a damn?

“There has never been a time when the community needed more to put its arms around each other, and get out there and help,” Micatrotto says.

In a city that usually doesn’t expect much from its residents in the way of generosity — this city and state rank dead last in terms of volunteer rates, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service — why spend the time and money to get involved?

“In my time here, I’ve been given some wonderful opportunities,” says Giroux, an assistant vice president at Nevada Commerce Bank. “For me, it’s the act of paying it forward. And it’s such a gratifying feeling if you can help someone.”

Perhaps you’re unimpressed. Eighty-four do-gooders in a valley of 2 million; 250 jackets against a boggling range of seemingly intractable educational problems. Perhaps you don’t see that change has to begin somewhere, that someone has to commit to something larger than their ambivalence, and therefore stasis. Perhaps you’re not solution-oriented. What’s your favorite city, anyway?

“We’ve got so much collective wisdom here, but it’s so disjointed,” Porter says. “If we can pull together within our own small circles of influence, the small pieces can become a larger picture.”

That certainly won’t stop Las Vegas from being a glittering Shangri-La of cynical exploitation, but it could help this be more of a real city.