Posts Tagged ‘Corporation for National and Community Service’

Change Notes: AmeriCorps Week 2010

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

Friends,

National AmeriCorps Week, which ended last Saturday, was an incredible time of service, celebration, bonding, and impact for AmeriCorps Alumni across the country. Points of Light supports and leads AmeriCorps Alums in our portfolio of programs to inspire, equip, and mobilize citizens to create change. More than 36,000 active AmeriCorps alumni engage through 100 chapters nationwide. Thousands of them participated in projects on land and in cyberspace, highlighting the effect that national service has had on their lives and on their communities.

Here are a few highlights:

Planned projects in Nashville, TN., were literally washed out by the flood, so AmeriCorps members and alums waded in to help with the recovery efforts. Austin, TX., accomplished 12 events in six days, including a “Walk for Change” to the Capitol, a flash mob, and Conan O’Brien as a guest speaker!

Portland, ME., one of the newest AmeriCorps Alum chapters, built a nature trail, while Portland, OR., restored river banks, including building 300 feet of split rail fence. Washington D.C. held an AmeriCorps night at the Nationals MLB game, cleared neighborhoods of debris left by record snowfalls this past winter, and held a “speed networking for good”.

The Philadelphia chapter kicked off the week with a large rally with the mayor at city hall, and Chicago organized service projects in community gardens to mobilize community members, no matter their age or abilities. Detroit showcased the power of AmeriCorps to impact the entire city, with mural painting, a free carnival, 40 blocks of neighborhood cleanup, playground rehabs, and rummage giveaways. The Sacramento chapter made Congresswoman Doris Matsui an honorary AmeriCorps member for a day to highlight its work.


Since 1994, more than half a million members have given more than 770 million hours of service, and that total counts just the years they were in the program. From service on MLK Jr. Day to creating more than 3,000 Disney Give A Day Get A Day projects, AmeriCorps Alums are actively engaged year ’round. The ideal of AmeriCorps is the lifetime engagement of national service alumni as a transformational force for change in America’s communities, from youth through old age, and AmeriCorps Week highlights the impact of that ideal.

This past weekend, I had the honor of addressing the graduating class of Wesleyan College in Macon, GA. Service to the community has been an integral part of the Wesleyan experience since the college’s founding in 1836. Two-thirds of Wesleyanstudents are involved in community service and, since 2002, its Lane Center for Community Engagement and Service has helped ensure that service learning is a major part of the school’s environment. To read my thoughts to these graduates about their power to change the world through service, please click here.

As students and AmeriCorps members graduate this spring and become alumni, they enter a world of extraordinary need. They also embody a new generation of citizenship and a passionate commitment to service. It is exciting to imagine the possibilities that they will bring to the critical national and international needs and priorities of our time.

Yours in Service,

Michelle Nunn

CEO, Points of Light Institute

Co-Founder, HandsOn Network

Everything Happens For a Reason

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

In celebration of AmeriCorps Week, today’s guest post comes from Tedd Cherry who is in his 2nd year  as a full-time AmeriCorps Volunteer. We are grateful to him for sharing his story with us.

You have to hit rock bottom before you realize where you are and can make the decision to pick your head up again and move on.

In the spring of 2008, I found myself barely alive.

Lost in a world of a bad economy as well as a lost job at a local newspaper, I did not want to live, the depression set in.

Spinning out of control, I had to find a way to slow down.

Without job opportunities in sight, the depression grew deeper.

“What looks like a loss may be the very event which is subsequently responsible for helping to produce the major achievement of your life” -Srully Blotnick

While losing hope, I saw the light in the distance.

That light was a summer camp in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

Respite camp is a place for children and adults with physical and developmental challenges.

Never in my live has my soul been touched with the hearts of gold of the campers and staff who came to work there from all over the world.

They are partially responsible for my commitment to service.

Working along side AmeriCorps volunteers all summer, I decided to apply for positions with AmeriCorps.

The next week after applying, I was on an airplane to New Hampshire.

What is in New Hampshire, you may ask?

Besides the ocean, the mountains and the wonderful people, there is City Year where I lived and served with 50 amazing young adults being tutor’s, mentor’s and role model’s to middle school age youth.

My year at City Year was not an easy one, the long hours, the tears, and the physical exhaustion…

Above all I remember my time at City Year, with the love, joy, and feeling of accomplishment.

Even after my term of service with City Year, I couldn’t leave.

This place, my home, will be in my heart forever.

When I reflect back on my continuing roller coaster of service, I see the good times and the bad, though the good far outweigh the bad.

People can tend to be afraid of service, like I was.

You have to look at it as if it was a cliff over a river. You are terrified to jump the fifty feet into the air with only the Wisconsin River below you, but like I did, you need to close your eyes, run and leap.

You will never find out what is down there if you don’t try.

Take chances, loose yourself often to new possibilities.

Live for what it is worth.

No matter what happens, its not going to be the worst thing that happens to you.

“Just keep Swimming.”

Throw away inhibition and take the initiative to love yourself.

Now that my last year of AmeriCorps service is coming to an end, the time has come to look for employment and begin my life after AmeriCorps.

As a strong AmeriCorps alumnus I will continue to serve, because everything happens for a reason.