A powerful practical reclaiming strategy for youth at risk is to tap their potential for service to others. This counters a sense of learned helplessness. The term "learned helplessness" (Seligman, 1975) comes to mind when the author thinks about when she began working with troubled youth more than 20 years ago. Her and her co-workers often spoke about how different things would be when the youth left protected therapeutic settings and went out into the real world. Many times, people wanted to volunteer and/or donate to the "poor, unfortunate" children. The youth were very adaptable and some played into the sympathies of the well-meaning donors. Her and her co-workers recognized that the role of the helpless individual was not productive to our work with youth. The "poor me" syndrome needed to be readjusted, so that their residents would look at others who maybe had things worse than themselves and could use their help. Recognizing that young people had a lot to give and should not always be on the receiving end, many youth-serving agencies developed a piece within their program which focused on volunteering or service learning.