This is the first year I can vote in a presidential election, and I’m glad it’s one as historic as this. That said, there’s plenty of young people who’d love to love, but can’t.

That’s the inspiration for ServiceNation Youth Chair Usher’s “I Can’t, But You Can” campaign. Young people under 18 go out into their communities to register people - often first-time voters - to vote. And on the Day of Action (SATURDAY!):

The Campaign will be expanded to 8 cities simultaneously on September 27th and is projected to educate more than 4,000 youth and register 17,000 new voters nationally.

In conjunction with ServiceNation’s Day of Action ( www.servicenation.org), the “I Can’t But You Can” Campaign will host voter registration rallies and drives in cities across the US on September 27th. Participating cities include: Atlanta, Boston, Kansas City (KS), Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, New Orleans and Oakland. At the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the USC Marching Band will perform, MTV’s Quddus will serve as Emcee for the Voter Registration Rally while KIIS-FM’s DJ Drew will get the crowd pumping.

Read the rest here.

On the back of my laptop, I have two ServiceNation stickers.  One reads, “Of. By. For. The People”; the other says “Ask me what I do”.  I’ve found there’s no better conversation starter.  I use my laptop in class, at work, and at Starbucks.  People respond to the prompt and, well, ask me what I do.

That opens a great conversation - I tutor kids, and am also involved with the Urban Debate League, a program that provides debate as an extra-curricular for DC’s less privileged middle and high schools.  I also work for ServiceNation - and this is where I explain what that is.

I wouldn’t say my service testimonials are particularly inspiring, and I don’t talk about them because I think they make me really great.  I serve because I can help others.  But when the random stranger at Starbucks asks me, “What do you do?”, I get a chance to talk ServiceNation.  And even if I don’t convince anyone to serve, I’m trying to get the word out.

So, Change/Wire readers: What do you do?  And how do you tell others about the power of volunteering?

And - what are you doing on September 27, the Day of Action?

On Friday morning, at the ServiceNation summit, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Caroline Kennedy (in place of her uncle) announced the Serve America Act, legislation that will expand volunteer opportunities for Americans of all ages, and create the Education Corps, the Healthy Futures Corps, the Clean Energy Service Corps, the Opportunity Corps, and the Reserve Corps, among other initiatives. This bill is fantastic for the service sector. It doesn’t just create government programs, though it does add much-needed government support; it brings help and money to non-profits and private groups that serve.

You can download the press release here, and the summary of the legislation here.

Caroline Kennedy and Senator Hatch spoke at the end of Friday’s Morning Plenary

The Road to Service Nation

As America’s collective national attention turned briefly this week from the political conventions to the Gulf Coast and the landfall of Hurricane Gustav we were reminded of a much larger storm, Katrina, which hit east of New Orleans three years ago almost to the day that Gustav came ashore. The name Katrina has become synonymous with the failures of the federal government’s response but it has also become a reminder of the enormous amount of attention and efforts which went to relief and recovery along the Gulf Coast. For several weeks in late summer 2005, Americans from all walks of life were called to help their fellow Americans; a sense of service which is deeply embedded within our psyche but which, all too unfortunately, takes a disaster like Katrina to come out. The greatest way to serve ones nation is during those moments of greatest need

Gustav was a much weaker storm than Katrina was and its damage will thankfully be much less than what the region has experienced in recent years. Likewise, the coordination between local, state and federal authorities as well as the mobilization of relief workers shows that we have made tremendous progress towards our emergency response.

At next week’s Service Nation Summit, our attention will be on politics, with the presidential candidates forum; it will be on homeland security, occurring on the anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks but we will also be mindful of Katrina, Gustav, Rita, Wilma and the other storms whose names read like a list of unwelcome guests. And of course we will be hoping that the current storms which are active in the Atlantic Basin, Hannah, Ike & Josephine, will not cause our attention to turn to imminence.

What were your first thoughts when you heard about Hurricane Gustav? Did you immediately run through a mental checklist of your friends and family in the path of the storm to determine their safety? Did you pray that our country avoid a repeat of what happened three years ago? Did you rush to the Red Cross website and make a donation to recovery efforts?

I know that my first thoughts were with the people of New Orleans who I met when I worked with the GulfSouth Youth Action Corps in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I obsessed over whether or not they would be okay. Those were my first thoughts, but my second thought was: what organization can I volunteer with this time?

I know many of you are like me. We were concerned about family and friends, we wanted to make a donation, but beyond that we were not satisfied sitting still. I know many of you are like me because 600,000 volunteers descended on the Gulf Coast in the second year of Katrina recovery. I know that many of you are like me because more than 20,000 college students were willing to forgo glamorous spring break trips to volunteer in the Gulf region in 2007.

Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans (June 2007)

I walked away from my experience volunteering in New Orleans in awe of a resilient community that was determined to save their city. A community that had one request of the outside world: do not forget us. My generation is incredibly caring and we are responsive to disaster, but we have a tragically short attention span. As we come to learn that the devastation of Hurricane Gustav will not rival that of Hurricane Katrina we should still remember the struggles that face people all across the Gulf in communities that have never fully recovered. We should still remember and get involved.

Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans (April 2008)

There is so much left to do, but the place to start is by engaging or even initiating in recovery efforts. I encourage you to check out ServiceNation’s Day of Action event page and consider starting a cleanup event of your very own.

I’m back in DC from Denver, and haven’t had a chance to post about my last day!

On Wednesday, I got a chance to talk to former PA senator Harris Wofford. He has been a tireless advocate of service, and remains so today - when I met him, he was wearing a Peace Corps hat. I’ll post the interview soon.

I was lucky enough to see Obama’s acceptance speech on Thursday, and he did mention service!

And we will keep our promise to every young American – if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

Here, here. We’re huge advocates of debt relief for service; often, money becomes a huge factor for new grads who would otherwise go into serving their country. If you’ve got huge student loans, taking a cut on salary is hard and sometimes not possible. But with debt relief programs, graduates are now able to choose a different path.

McCain is also a proponent of this plan. He’s a huge supporter of both AmeriCorps and Teach for America. Read more on the candidates, education, and service here.

I look forward to covering the RNC as well; however, because of the storms, most programming has been postponed or canceled. It should start up tonight. Yesterday, Laura Bush and Cindy McCain appealed to conventioners as well as the at-home audience to give to relief efforts in the Gulf Coast. We absolutely support, and think their calling attention to the region was very well done. If you can donate, check out the Freedom Corps website, which has a great list of places, or just go directly to the American Red Cross.

As you know, Hurricane Gustav has hit the coast with energy.  It’s finally calming down, but not before leaving a path of destruction through Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, among other places.

If you have the ability, please, give.  The American Red Cross makes it really easy.  Click here to donate.

This is a huge thing, and it looks like more storms (Hurricane Hanna and Tropical Storm Ike) are reaching for the coast.  There’s going to be a huge need.  ServiceNation fans, if you can, please give.  We’ve got some change agents in New Orleans and SE Texas, as well as countless supporters and volunteers.  We’re keeping everyone in the region in our thoughts.

Unless you have been hiding from the news, you know that Obama and McCain have not yet announced their running mates, but the announcements are expected soon. Our ServeNext friends have a great post on the potential vice-president nominees’ views on service. (Potential vice-president nominees is a really awkward phrase, but I don’t know how else to say it!) For example:

Potential Obama pick Evan Bayh took the lead in supporting the U.S. Public Service Academy and even worked with John McCain to push for the national service bill they authored together.

Bobby Jindal is another prominent [McCain VP] candidate who established an AmeriCorps Week in Louisiana in recognition of their service to the state in its widely successful struggle to recover from Hurricane Katrina, as did fellow potential McCain pick Marsha Blackburn for her state, Tennessee (however, she later voted against the GIVE Act).

So read it, and get hopeful - almost all of the shortlisted VP candidates are huge service supporters!

Change Agent Martin Free has given us a guest post on the National Youth Gathering:

When it comes to empowering young adults with the necessary tools to succeed in life, no one takes their job more seriously than Robinne Alexander, the CEO of America’s Born2Lead Network. It is through her great creativity and vision for a better America that the 1st National Youth Gathering was launched in Beaumont, Texas this past weekend. The conference was jam packed with a lot of awesome seminars hosted by outstanding leaders such as BET’s Jeff Johnson and Cee Cee Michaela from UPN’s hit show “Girlfriends”. One of the most amazing seminars was hosted by Shenequa Flucas from the Triangle AIDS Network (a local ServiceNation partner) who discussed sex and other important topics with the audience in a candid and moving way. I truly believe that all of the attendees at the conference left with a new toolkit to help deal with the challenges in the lives of young adults today.

Since early June, America’s Born2Lead Network has been a strong ally in helping ServiceNation to make an impact on the Southeast Texas community. Adrian Leyva (Houston Committee Member and ServiceNation Young Leader) and myself had the awesome opportunity to represent ServiceNation at the conference by hosting an exhibit. It was great to spend time in the exhibit hall and meet so many young adults who are interested in helping to change their communities, but many of whom do not know what opportunities exist for them or how they can help. That’s where we shined! We were able to show them how the Day of Action is going to have an impact on our local community, and that everyone can be involved in citizen service. One of the most rewarding aspects of the ServiceNation exhibit for Adrian and myself was to show these young people that there is hope for a better America, and it’s not just on the horizon anymore —– it is in our front yards, and it is going to be knocking on our doors next month.

When it comes to seeing the ServiceNation vision, Robinne has been by my side. We believe that we can create change in our community - no matter how many roadblocks stand in our way or how many people may oppose us. We have faced numerous challenges in Texas, and together we are working to unlock the sleeping giant of citizen service that has been dormant entirely too long.

Raise the Mileage Deduction for Volunteers!

If you travel for business, you probably know that you can deduct mileage from your taxes. But you can do the same for moving, medical - and volunteer mileage. That’s great - but the volunteer mileage deduction is pitiful, and hasn’t been increased to reflect, well, anything:
While the IRS has recently increased the deduction for business travel from 50.5 to 58.5 cents per mile, and for medical or moving expense from 19 to 27 cents per mile, the volunteer deduction amount is set in law at 14 cents per mile and requires congressional action for any change.

Contact your congresspeople through the link to let them know! It’s a small thing, but pennies add up.