My friend Chris Golden and I are excited to begin keeping you up to date about our personal preparations and experiences surrounding the ServiceNation summit. We are two of the 100 young leaders who will gather in New York City for a summit and experience of a lifetime in roughly two weeks. Chris and I became friends while freshmen at American University. We’re both really interested in current events, politics (even though we’re near polar opposites on the political spectrum), and citizen service.
Yesterday we finished up a press release about our plans to attend the ServiceNation summit, and it was sent back to our hometowns and college campuses. It was important to us to get the word out, especially to our peers, about ServiceNation and the grassroots effort to improve our country that will follow. It was also important to demonstrate the involvement of young people in this movement. I think it is great the organizers of the summit made such a deliberate attempt to engage and reach out to young people, the future of our country.
More than any other recent generation, my generation, the Millennials as we like to say, have a desire to serve their country and give back. Perhaps it’s because we found working outside what we perceive to be a broken political system is more effective. Perhaps it’s because we are defined by the 2001 terrorist attacks and are inspired by the subsequent showing of national unity and call to service. Whatever the reason, young people are becoming more engaged and our communities and country stands to benefit immensely because of that.
For example:
This week I have had several friends attend the Democratic National Convention, as many more prepare to fly out to the Republican National Convention next week (one as a delegate, one as a journalist, and one as a page). I have a high school friend who, in his junior year of college, is running for state senate in Rhode Island. I’ve met teenage school board members, leaders of civic movements like 18in08, and non-profit leaders, such as where I work at Mobilize.org. The power of our generation is enormous, and it is reassuring that ServiceNation recognizes this and wants to tap that potential in this movement going forward.
I look forward to meeting other young leaders across the country and hearing their stories. We have so much to learn from each other. And while we are still two weeks out, we’re not wasting any time. Thank you, Facebook. More on that tomorrow.
Tags: Nick Troiano, ServiceNation, summit, Young Leader
