Obama Tells Congress to Pass Bold Service Bill

I received this email from my friends at Servenext.org - CHECK IT OUT!!

Last night in front of Congress and live cameras, President Barack Obama called for a renewed commitment to service. This was a huge moment to watch him make a specific appeal for service to become a priority as a strategy to tackle challenges that communities are facing across the country.

President Obama called on each of us to get involved and he called on Congress to pass bold service legislation. Immediately the audience gave a roaring ovation.

You can watch the clip here: www.servenext.org/JointCongressSpeech/

The bill that the President mentions is the bi-partisan Serve America Act authored by Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch. It is arguably the boldest civilian service legislation in over seventy years.

Here are some of the details:
• Create new corps focused on areas of national need, building on the success of AmeriCorps. Will support 175,000 members, expanding the number of participants to 250,000;
• Enhance incentives for participants who are age 50 or older to serve and establishes "Encore Fellowships" to help retirees transition to longer-term public service;
• Establish a National Service Reserve Corps to deploy trained alumni to natural disasters and other emergencies;
• Expand opportunities for secondary school students and out-of-school youth in low income, high-need communities to participate in service-learning programs;
• Create "Campuses of Service," where students engage in service and service-learning; a larger percentage of Federal Work Study funds will be used for community service positions;
• Strengthen the current "Volunteers for Prosperity" program, which coordinates and supports short-term international service opportunities for skilled professionals to serve in developing nations;
• Establish a "Volunteer Generation Fund" to help nonprofit organizations recruit and manage more volunteers;
• Provide a tax incentive to employers who allow employees to take paid leave for full-time service;
• Provide a funding mechanism that helps scale effective programs; and
• Develop a social entrepreneur fellowship program for AmeriCorps alumni and veterans.

This is another exciting moment in the effort to pass new legislation that will help address the enormous, but solvable challenges America is facing. Stay tuned!

In Service,

Zach Maurin, ServeNext.org