The speaker at this graduation stressed paying back more than your student loan:

“When I was growing up, service was as essential a part of my upbringing as eating and sleeping and going to school and to church. I was taught that service is the rent that each of us pays for living, the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you’ve reached your personal goals.”

–Marian Wright Edelman, President, Children’s Defense Fund; Seattle Pacific University, June 14, 2014

Daughter of a Baptist preacher in Bennettsville, South Carolina, Ms. Edelman says her parents modeled a Christ-likeness throughout her childhood. Anyone in need was a neighbor.

In her adult life, Ms. Edelman has been a voice for the nation’s children. According to an article in Seattle Pacific University’s Response magazine, she has supported programs to prevent childhood abuse and teen pregnancy, advocated for enrichment programs that encourage a love of reading, and engaged political leaders to support health care, early education, and increased aid for low-income families.

Ms. Edelman admits she is “totally inflexible about children going hungry in the richest nation on earth . . . about children being homeless, about children being in schools that don’t teach them how to learn.”

How about a few more such “inflexible” servants?