ServiceNation from www.bethechangeinc.org/servicenation

ServiceNation is a campaign to inspire a new era of voluntary citizen service in America.

Why volunteer? Because service is the great equalizer--in the words of Dr. King, “anyone can be great because anyone can serve.” Service builds community among people, regardless of their race, gender, or socio economic status. It allows us to participate in something bigger than ourselves and demonstrates that our commonalities as a people are greater than our individual differences. And those of us who have served know that in the act of transforming our communities for the better, we ended up transforming ourselves.

Now, more than ever, we need to expand opportunities for people to serve. Because we have serious issues to address: our education system is failing a significant percentage of our kids, hunger and homelessness run rampant in our communities, our parks, rivers, and open spaces need protection, and college has ceased to become affordable to most of us. Service can be a vehicle, to simultaneously address our most pressing unmet societal needs while providing money in a real way, for higher education.

ServiceNation is a national campaign to increase service opportunities, solve chronic social problems through service, and promote a culture of service in America. ServiceNation is a vision of a new America, an America where citizens unite to take responsibility for strengthening communities and building a better future, and where service is a core ideal of citizenship. The ultimate vision of ServiceNation is an America in which, by 2020, 100 million citizens will volunteer time in schools, workplaces, and faith-based and community institutions each and every year (up from 61 million today), and that increasing numbers of Americans annually will commit a year of their lives to national service.

The ServiceNation campaign was pulled together by four organizations: Be the Change, City Year, Civic Enterprises and the Points of Light Foundation.
ServiceNation has brought together a coalition of more than 100 organizations that collectively reach some 100 million Americans.

Call the VCCV at 272-2087 or visit www.vccv.org for more information about local volunteer opportunities.