On President-Elect Obama’s service website, USAService.org, there’s a nod to Idealist.org as a place to find other service opportunities. 17 other organizations are listed as well, including several national service organizations and Service Nation. 

Thank you, Transition Team!

If you have an MLK Day service event you’d like to promote, you can do so on USAService.org’s event directory. Also check out the blog.

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In an effort to change the image of the government-sector workforce, a new site highlights the stories of public servants.

IAmPublicService.org — a new site sponsored by GovLoop, the social networking site for government employees — is calling for submissions of stories from people who are government workers. Selected stories will be included in a book that will be released with the Inauguration January 20th. The deadline for submissions is Jan. 12th.

The mission of IAmPublicService.org is “is to inform US citizens about the success stories of public sector personnel and to inspire the next generation of public servants. We achieve this mission by highlighting and honoring people who have dedicated their careers to leaving a legacy of effective and efficient government.”

You can follow GovLoop on Twitter.

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If you are graduating from college soon and worried that your career options are limited due to your staggering student loan burden, you may find some relief.

Partnering with American University’s Washington College of Law, Equal Justice Works has launched its first podcast show on the topic of student debt relief. Equal Justice Works is the organization for public interest law and law schools, and has been a long-time co-sponsor of Idealist’s Graduate Degree Fairs for the Public Good.

One of the biggest hurdles for any person entering a public service career is student loan debt – and law school grads may face the worst of it. In 2007, Congress passed the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) which forgives certain federal student loans for people in qualified public service – after they’ve made 120 (about ten years’ of) loan payments.

But understanding the law, and how it applies to you, is challenging. Equal Justice Works already offers information on its website and blog to help people wade through the morass of complicated fine print. The podcast—The Student Debt Relief Series, available on iTunes—gives you the nuances of the Act in plain English. EJW’s Heather Jarvis, a public interest lawyer herself, knows the law inside and out. She offers answers to some frequently asked (and frequently overlooked) questions about using the Act for people coming out of school in the past couple of years.

Although EJW focuses on law school issues in general, the first podcast episode is clearly accessible to any person pursuing a public service career. Its creators hope to feature a new show monthly on topics like loan repayment assistance programs (including statewide and law school programs, etc.) and the tax implications of the CCRAA.

After the New Year, we’re excited to announce that the EJW blog—led by Aaron Pickering—will join the Idealist Grad School Blog Project.

This blog post was originally published on the Idealist.org homepage blog.

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