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

"WHY I SERVE" & Pictures from Atlanta Training - posted by Elizabeth Egan

WOW! I am so inspired by Mamie's story - her faith, courage, and excitement are quite contagious. I have goose bumps!

WHY I SERVE:
I am originally from NH, but have lived in Boston, Philadelphia, Vermont, and now...New Orleans. I consider each of these very different places home. Although I had always been engaged in community life and various community service projects - My first experience with full-time National Service came when, needing a sabbatical from providing direct service to survivors of violence, I joined the Recruitment Staff for an AmeriCorps program designed specifically for 17-24 year olds.

My first major service project with City Year New Hampshire came when they flew me to Little Rock, AK to help the CY Site there implement 24 service projects at 15 locations around the city in celebration of the 50 year anniversary of the Little Rock 9 -highlighting the struggle to integrate Little Rock Public Schools and the brave journey of the first students to break barriers, leading the way.

I will never forget how amazing it felt to be a part of something that huge, that transformational. I felt a re-surfacing of my youthful idealism, now no longer intangible and fragile, but rather rooted in the witnessing of practical strategies of how to use powerful entrepreneurial tools, skills, and networks to move ideas into reality. I was deeply moved by the power of collaboration - hands, hearts, and minds coming together to leaving a lasting impact in that city.

It was an amazing year, to say the least - I learned so much, but I think the most important lesson was about WHO I AM. WHO I AM is SERVICE. And I believe, with all my heart, that National Service and the ingenuity & passion of those who serve, will be one of the many answers we will use to bring transformation for the many issues individuals, communities, our country, and indeed, the world face.

This belief has only been furthered validated with the experiences of my first two weeks as an AmeriCorps Vista with One-Economy and Central City Renaissance Alliance. In Atlanta, last week, I had the pleasure of coming together at PSO and On-Site Training with a great group of Vistas, including my fellow in-coming One-Economy Team: Sonja, Benjamin, Brian, Mamie, and Katherine (and our leader - Holly)! I can't wait to get to know them better - to benefit from their knowledge, their passion, their support, and their friendship. I believe this year will even better than the last and while I am sure it will also be difficult, I am able to embrace the experience, secure in the knowledge that I am not alone in this and we can make a difference.

Meet the incoming One-Economy Vista class!

(bottom row, left-right:
Sonja & Katherine)
(top row, left-right: Holly, Mamie, Benjamin, Elizabeth, and Brian)