A Vehicle to Harness the Transformative Power of Service

Inspired by retired Army Civil Affairs Colonel Christopher Holshek’s Travels with Harley – Journeys in Search of Personal and National Identity, The National Service Ride Project is an adaptive, community-based initiative in which veteran motorcyclists roar into schools to help mobilize youth to better themselves, their community, and their country through service-learning—at assemblies, social studies and health classrooms, volunteer fairs, a virtual volunteer portal, and other resources.

The project looks to help generate a self-empowering, inclusive, and unifying narrative about citizenship and service across societal and generational lines, promoting engagement and collaboration among many as one—e pluribus unum—and helping pass the baton of generational leadership.

The project synergizes a coalition of government, veteran, community, and volunteer organizations to assist school districts to integrate service-learning into their multiyear curriculum strategy. From grade to high school, kids learn meaning and value of service first from role models and peer examples—how service is kindness, Or, as Holshek says in the project video. “When we become better citizens, we become a better country – because, when you serve your community, you serve your country.”, 

Then they learn it through their own service experiences as community volunteers.

Service learning helps young, self-actualizing persons gain the self-confidence and leadership, teambuilding, problem-solving, and other practical skills they need no matter their pathway forward. In addition to growing social connections and networks beyond their smart phones, they can build resumes and gain valuable experience and personal references.

The National Service Ride Project works informally. Adaptable and flexible, its multimedia-friendly platform brings together organizations that might otherwise not have reason to collaborate, extends their platforms and local initiatives, and improves outreach to youth in a unique and highly visible way, helping to boost awareness, membership, volunteerism, and fundraising.

Schools especially benefit from a scalable platform to encourage and enable service learning, which impacts educational outcomes and results in a better cohort of citizens. Service learning also improves a greater sense of community and helps combat many social problems and their costs.

It also helps military veterans connect with their communities positively and meaningfully, improving civil-military relations and generational partnering to ensure America's legacy of service lives on.

As an offshoot to the project's core platform, likewise in coordination with the American Legion and Legion Riders, the National Service Ride Project has helped initiative a program for high school seniors and young veterans to escort Vietnam-era and other veterans on Hudson Valley Honor Flight missions to see the monuments in our nation’s capital in their honor and receive a “welcome home” for which many have waited over a half-century. This gives these youth guardians a unique, first-hand opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the meaning and value of patriotism, service, and sacrifice, helping to pass the baton of leadership from one generation of Americans to the next. 

The National Service Ride Project is not funded by anything other than sales of Travels with Harley.

Learn more by checking out our initiatives. Or send us an email to nationalserviceride@gmail.com