Tag Archives: national service

09.12.08
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Service Nation Summit on Friday afternoon

After the Town Hall, Chris Dodd was to speak:

Michael Brown, co-founder of City Year, introduces RPCV Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT).

Chris Dodd, in his opening remarks, says that he has spoken with Ted Kennedy and that Kennedy apologizes for not being here. Dodd announces that he has signed on as a co-sponsor of the Servce America Act. Our candidates are stronger because they have served their country: McCain in the military, and Obama in his community. Their examples of service remind us that who or how or where you serve, but that you serve. Sited the value to his life and values of his own Peace Corps service. Founded the bipartisan National Service Congressional Caucus in the Senate and introduced the Summer of Service legislation. We can’t write a check at all of our problems, but we can invest more in service. We spend in Iraq on one day what we spend all year on AmeriCorps and Peace Corps. We must translate our ideas into action, and change our country. Talk about what we can and must do as a nation, and the role national service plays in helping us accomplish our goals.

In an interview after the speech, Dodd said that we aren’t emphasizing enough how well the investment national service programs leverages community volunteers and resources, and facilitates the growth of strong communities, that would be far more expensive without national service Corps members. When I asked him about the challenge of keeping the spotlight on national service, he said he was committed to doing his part in the Senate and pointed to his emphasis on the movement during his presidential campaign this year.

Also see Building Bi-Partisan Support, a panel discussion with Dodd, following Dodd’s speech.

09.11.08
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Kennedy-Hatch Serve America Act

Update, April 21, 2009: President Obama signs the Serve America Act into law. To take effect October 1, 2009.

Friday, Sept. 12, Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced new legislation called the “Serve Amerca Act” to expand national and community service opportunities. After the bill was introduced in the Senate, it was referred to the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

The legislation will seek to expand the number of national service participants to 250,000 (175,000 more than can be currently funded).

Themes include expanding opportunities for people to serve at every stage of life, and to use service to meet specific national challenges like natural disaster preparedness and response, high school drop out prevention, energy conservation and environmental stewardship, and health care and more jobs access for people with low-incomes. It includes the creation of a reserve corps of national service alumni who can be mobilized in the wake of a natural disaster.

The act seeks specific opportunities to serve for students, working adults, retirees, and “Americans of all ages.” A new benefit for older participants would be an education award transferable to grandchildren. Currently AmeriCorps members must use their Eli Segal Education Award on their own tuition or student loans.

The bill, if passed, would support social entrepreneurship through establishing a commission to look at cross-sector solutions to social problems, and to apply effective business practices in the nonprofit sector by establishing venture capital funds to increase its talent pool and efficacy.

Finally, the bill seeks to expand Volunteers for Prosperity, which fosters short-term international volunteer opportunities for United States professionals to serve in developing countries.

(The information here is a summary of a press release from Senator Kennedy‘s and Senator Hatch‘s offices.)

Update from the Service Nation Summit, Sept. 12, 2008:

Orrin Hatch officially announced the new Serve America Act bill this morning at the Service Nation Summit and spoke touchingly of his work with Ted Kennedy “across the aisle.” The senators have worked together for a long time and Hatch’s affection for his friend was obvious and endearing. (Senator Kennedy was convalescing at home.)

In a statement that drew enthusiastic applause, Hatch announced that both Senators McCain and Obama have signed on to co-sponsor the legislation! Other co-sponsors include Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), RPCV Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), and Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR). To the bi-partisan crowd gathered for the Summit, all supporters of national service, the support of both Presidential candidates means a lot. Hopes are high for national service and the next administration.

In an interview with Hatch after his speech, he addressed a question about the cost to government of national service. The bill, he said, “should please those who are concerned about cost.” He cited the relatively low cost of supporting trained volunteers compared to the cost of allowing high schoolers to drop out, and ignoring young people who have lost their role models to prison and worse fates. Further, according to Hatch, elevating these youth, educating them, and connecting them with job skills will serve the economy well, as will the creation of jobs, including in the energy industry.

Read the Press Release.

Read the executive summary of S.3487, The Serve America Act.

Read the entire bill (PDF) written by Emma Vadehra.

Read the opinion piece by Senators Kennedy and Hatch in TIME Magazine.

09.09.08
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Michael Brown and Robert Balfanz on National Service

Adding to the chorus of national service supporters this week, City Year CEO and co-founder Michael Brown, and Johns Hopkins research scientist Robert Balfanz have written an opinion piece “Volunteering to Get Tomorrow’s Dropouts on Track” published in today’s Boston Globe.

People who drop out of high school, they claim, not only give us warning signs that they are “off-track” but they can be put back on the right track if they get the support they need from trained, caring adult role models — the type of support that national service participants can offer.

Balfanz and Brown cite national service members’s desire to serve and the relatively low cost (in dollars) of supporting them.

09.08.08
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Paul Light on what the president needs to do to strengthen national and public service

Just in time for the Service Nation Summit, Paul Light of the Wagner Graduate School of Public Serivce at NYU, just published this opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, on what the next president needs to do in order to strengthen both national service and the public service sector.

On a side note, read the Wagner definition of public service, which I am a big fan of:

“The Wagner School sees public service as work that matters, work of public importance – wherever it happens. What does it mean for work to ‘matter?’ At one level, it means that the work of public service has an impact on others, that it touches issues of public concern, that it is motivated more by mission than by money. Public service work also ‘matters’ at another level: those of us who choose public service want our work to ‘matter’ in our lives. We choose public service careers because we want our work to reflect our values; we want careers that satisfy our need to be of service or to transform some part of the world.”

What do you think of Paul Light’s piece? What’s your definition of public service?