While AmeriCorps applications are seeing a steep rise, the Corporation for National and Community Service is climbing an uphill battle for funding.
According to an unpublished Corporation report, discussed by Tim Zimmerman on today’s Change/Wire, the blog of the Service Nation campaign:
• In June 2009, [the Corporation for National and Community Service] received 34,373 online AmeriCorps applications, nearly triple the 11,814 online applications received in June of 2008. Continue reading
Obama signs the Serve America Act, 4/09
Beginning in early July, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will mark up the fiscal year 2010 Labor, Health & Human Services, and Education Appropriations bills.
The Kennedy Serve America Act, enacted in April, authorized the expansion of national service, but offered no promises in terms of how much funding Congress would give the Corporation for National and Community Service to implement the Act. According to the organization Voices For National Service, President Obama’s budget request for the Corporation for National and Community Service totaled $1.149 billion, including funding for:
AmeriCorps: to create 10,000 new AmeriCorps positions (the first step towards the Serve America Act’s goal of 250,000 annual members by the year 2017). Learn why funding these positions is important for local communities throughout the United States.
According to Voices For National Service, the House could send the National Service Bill to President Obama this week.
Monday and Tuesday of this week, the House of Representatives will consider the version of the national service legislation that was amended and passed last week by the Senate. The legislation goes by the names The GIVE Act and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, and is also known as H.R. 1388.
If the House passes the bill, the legislation will be sent to President Obama to be signed into law.
The House is considering H.R. 1388 on the Suspension Calendar, and debate will be limited to 40 minutes. Under suspension, no one can further amend the bill, or recommit it to the House Labor and Education Committee where it originated. The bill must get a two-thirds super majority to pass.
Because the Senate’s bill is more costly than the original bill passed in the House, getting it through the House with a super majority may prove challenging.
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The office of Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) — who is managing the bill — says that the Serve America Act will go to the full Senate Monday likely at 3 p.m. EST. Debate could last days.
Voices for National Service, Service Nation, and Serve Next urge proponents of the Serve America Act and national service to contact their senators today or Monday morning, to let Senators know where they stand.
Read the joint Press Release issued on the Serve America Act this week by Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Enzi (R-WY), Hatch (R-UT) and Mikulski.
You can watch the debate live on CSPAN.
Read the amended Serve America Act approved by the Senate HELP Committee.
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Deadline to register is Sept. 10
Speak with your representatives in Congress about your hopes for national service during the Voices for National Service Capitol Hill Day on September 24-25, 2008. Last year, service corps alumni, staff, and other allies visited more than 120 congressional offices during the Voices for National Service Capitol Hill Day.
According to Voices for National Service, the group brought evidence of programs’ performance and impact from 31 different states and more than 60 organizations. So if you go, consider the information you’d like to share.
Have you participated before? Do you plan to go this year?
The New Service 