Last week, the Corporation for National and Community Service announced that 8 organizations would receive the $2.2 million in awards, which will fund 230 AmeriCorps volunteers:

Two multi-state programs were awarded funding – CLEAR Corps/USA, which promotes healthy lead-free environments for children through mobile lead testing vans, advocacy and educational programs, received $443,340, and the Minnesota Conservation Corps, which works on natural resource protection and disaster response in Minnesota and Iowa, received $365,400. The Minnesota Conservation Corps will send its members to Cedar Rapids and other flooded Iowa communities to assist in clean up and rebuilding.

Six local projects also received funding: Birmingham (Ala.) READS AmeriCorps ($251,879); Project Laulima of the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii ($321,300); Partners in Learning AmeriCorps Program through the City of Dubuque, Iowa ($205,378); Habitat for Humanity AmeriCorps Maryland ($275,569); Project TLC (To Love a Child) in Memphis, Tenn., sponsored by the Exchange Club Family Center of the Mid-South ($223,650); and Building a Community of Champions sponsored by the Monroe County, W.Va., Schools ($137,651).

Through 2008, AmeriCorps will have over 74,000 volunteers - which is great, but, well, not enough to do everything. The programs mentioned are great, and definitely worth looking into if they’re near you.

Earlier this month, at the Brookings Institution, Reps. Gwendolynne Moore (D-WISC) and Chris Shays (R-CT) spoke about AmeriCorps and service at the event which unveiled the Corporation for National And Community Service’s major study of how AmeriCorps affects the lives of those who serve. The Brookings tech team filmed the session, and sent us these clips of Moore and Shays.

Alan Khazei (great guy and our CEO) and John Bridgeland (of Civic Enterprises; also a great guy, and a lead partner) presented the ServiceNation plan to the Board of the Corporation for National and Community Service (which oversees AmeriCorps). In response, the CNCS board issued a resolution:

WHEREAS, John Bridgeland and Alan Khazei today, in a presentation to the Board of Directors, offered a vision and strategy to reinvigorate the national debate around service and volunteering; and

WHEREAS, there is growing evidence of the power of service to transform those serving and those communities served; and

WHEREAS, leaders of this country in the private sector, in education, in state houses and the Halls of Congress, in philanthropy, and in the media, are recognizing the crucial role service plays in solving critical national and global problems; and

WHEREAS, a ServiceNation Summit is scheduled for September, 2008 to convene local and national leaders to expand opportunities to serve and to debate policy initiatives relating to service and volunteering;

IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, that the Board of Directors for the Corporation for National and Community Service commends the conveners of the ServiceNation Summit in bringing together leaders from all walks of American life to focus on lifelong service as a key strategy for building citizenship, addressing our nation’s most critical problems, and strengthening the fabric of our nation.

Every little bit helps. It’s great to get the recognition and the backing of CNCS. Now we just have to print out lots of copies and plaster them all over the streets (kidding). ServiceNation is gaining momentum!

“We really should write something about ServiceNation once we are done with this Independence thing.”

Our friends over at Voices For National Service just sent aroound the following call for action. It’s a worthwhile call, so please, umm, act (and forward the alert):

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) Announces AmeriCorps Act of 2008
Help Secure CoSponsors and Support National Service

On Friday, May 16, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) will introduce the AmeriCorps Act of 2008, legislation which will:

–Raise the education award to $6,185,  the average annual cost of tuition andfees for an instate student at a four year public university;

–Make the education award tax exempt;

–Restore the Corporation’s previous authority to partner with other Federalagencies to use national service as a strategy to carry out Departments’ priorities;

–and,  Promote the Corporation for National and Community Service to Cabinet level status.

Voices for National Service strongly supports this effort to recognize the importance of service and to promote access to education by increasing the value of the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award. Since inception in 1994, more than 540,000 citizens have served through AmeriCorps to address the unmet needs of our nation. These citizens have given over 700,000,000 hours toward improving the lives of other Americans.

Click here to read the bill language.

You can build support for national service by encouraging your Senators to join as original cosponsors of the bill.  Call today; the deadline for cosponsors is Thursday, May 15th at 4:00pm.

Action Steps for the AmeriCorps Act of 2008:

1. Call the Capitol operator at (202) 224-3121 to be connected to your Senator.
2. Ask your elected official to be an original cosponsor of the AmeriCorps Act of 2008.
3. To cosponsor, interested offices should contact Mary Ellen McGuire with Senator Dodd’s office by email: MaryEllen_McGuire@help.senate.gov. Deadline for cosponsors is Thursday, May 15th at 4pm.

The Corporation For National And Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps, just released a carefully done study which examined how AmeriCorps affects the lives of those who serve. The study compared the lives and choices of two thousand AmeriCorps alums eight years after they served with the lives of a control group composed of a similar demographic which hadn’t passed through AmeriCorps. And the results, presented by CNCS CEO David Eisner, at Brookings this morning are interesting. Here are a few headlines:

1. AmeriCorps is an excellent pipeline into public service. Sixty percent of AmeriCorps alums (compared with 40 percent in the control group) are employed in public service-related jobs (and Latino and African American alums are almost twice as likely to go into public service than their peers). This is important because multiple other studies show that there is a looming shortage of qualified people to run our non-profits and our government.
2. About 80 percent of alums said that AmeriCorps exposed them to new career opportunities and possibilities.
3. And about 90 percent of AmeriCorps alums say they are satisfied with their lives and careers eight years out. (Which just goes to show that happiness can be more about what you give than what you get).

Eisner also mentioned that research the CNCS is doing on the Millenials is showing that 16-19 year olds today volunteer twice as much as 16-19 year olds did in the 1970s and 1980s. The Millenials really are going to change everything, which is why the ServiceNation campaign to expand service opportunities in America holds such promise. And Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), who helped introduce the event, is ready to help. Asked by moderator EJ Dionne what he would say if the next president calls him up and says he wants to expand AmeriCorps, Shays answered he would have a simple response: “How can I help?” It would be nice if that were uniformly the response from Capitol Hill, but something tells me…

You can download the full AmeriCorps study, the Executive Summary, and all the other paper released today here. We’ll have some video clips from the event up later.

Eisner: “The more intense and lengthy your service is, the more likely you are to continue it.”