A new Facebook Cause lets you share your commitment to volunteering on MLK Day, and to urge your friends to do the same.
The Corporation for National and Community Service — the group that oversees AmeriCorps — has joined together with the Presidential Inauguration Committee, Facebook, and Facebook Causes to launch a Facebook Cause, Answer Obama’s Call to Renew America Together.
Capitalizing on social networks, organizers hope to help to galvanize millions of people to volunteer on January 19th, MLK Day. In the announcement from Nicola Goren, Acting CEO of the Corporation:
In the four days leading up to the election, this type of strategy resulted in nearly 2 million people taking part in a get-out-the-vote effort that reached nearly 20 million people with reminders to vote. By activating our networks, we have the opportunity to create a similar effect by asking millions of Americans to volunteer on January 19th and redouble their service commitment for the remainder of 2009.
Her announcement also includes these instructions:
- Join the cause Answer Obama’s Call to Renew America Together.
- Invite Your Friends to join the cause.
- Donate your Status Message. Once you’ve joined the Cause, you can donate your Facebook status message to pledge/promote their participation on the King Day of Service and to encourage their friends to do the same.
- Take the King Day Impact Challenge and encourage your friends to create their own service projects and pledge actions to address issues such as hunger, the environment, the classroom, mentoring, or disasters/crises.
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The New Service 
While I champion the call to service, and am delighted to know thousands will be volunteering, I’ve been concerned for many years that the definition of volunteering and service has been too narrowly drawn and that what we should be encouraging is civic participation, in all of its many forms.
Civic participation flows from a personal belief that you have responsibility for shaping your community, however big or small you’d like to define that community. I want to honor the neighbor who shovels my sidewalk, the volunteer union steward, the people who show up for community forums, the volunteers on political campaigns, and the peace activists who stand vigil on the corner. I feel that this critical and important acts of service are too often forgotten. I talk more about them in my blog post for today at http://www.ceffect.com/blog.
Best, Gayle
Amen, Gayle! Thanks so much for saying so.