Serve America

President Obama has called Americans to action. He believes that to be good citizens we can not be passive. We have been asked to serve our country in order to make it a better place and to help those who are struggling to obtain the American dream. Obama’s charge sparked millions of American’s to volunteer on MLK Day, making it the largest national day of service in United States history. Those millions of volunteers got a lot done on January 19, but to get even more done, long term, full time service programs could be leveraged to accomplish even more. AmeriCorps is one such example of a long term, full time volunteer program whose alums have donated many millions of hours of time, skill and energy in an effort to alleviate poverty, improve reading skills, build affordable housing and clean parks, to name just a few of the invaluable activities that they’ve performed.

In the spirit of President Roosevelt’s Citizen Conservation Corps, and President Eisenhower’s Peace Corps, AmeriCorps was created by President Clinton in 1993. Expansion of the AmeriCorps program, which now places 75,000 volunteers a year in 6 month to year long terms, has been proposed by Senators Orrin Hatch and Edward Kennedy under the Serve America Act, to include 175,000 more volunteer positions. These new positions would deal with specific national issues such as tackling the dropout crisis and strengthening our schools; improving energy efficiency; safeguarding the environment; improving health care in low-income communities; expanding economic opportunities for low-income individuals; and preparing for and responding to disasters and emergencies. The Serve America Act hopes to engage adults of all ages as well as encourage innovative ideas from non-profits as to how to resolve these pressing national issues.

Closer to home, the effects of the AmeriCorps program on Met Council and our clients are plenty and vast. Met Council serves as a host site for 3 AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers, and the supervisor for 5 more. The VISTA branch of AmeriCorps deals exclusively with capacity building, unlike the more well known State and National or NCCC programs that serve directly in the community. The VISTA volunteers at Met Council work to grow the capability of the organization, so they are able to provide services to more people. At Met Council this means recruiting more volunteers, writing grants or developing new marketing strategies in order to attract new donors. VISTA volunteers at Met Council have helped design our new website, which has attracted twice as many donations as our previous website, brought in $2 million dollars in grants, recruited 5,000 new volunteers and created countless flyers, newsletters and presentations that have informed numerous people about the effects of poverty and the services that Met Council offers.