Change Notes: Parade All-American Service Team

Friends,

From aiding Haitian earthquake survivors to feeding the hungry in local communities to educating peers about environmental issues, young people across the country are helping shape their communities through service. Fifteen of these young heroes have been named to PARADE’s 2011 All-America High School Service Team, selected in partnership with Points of Light Institute’s generationOn.

For the second year, PARADE Magazine is lifting up the stories of inspiring high school students who are changing the world. The PARADE All-America High School Service Team showcases the entrepreneurial spirit of these young people and shows how individuals – regardless of age, resources or experience – can create real change. You can read more about these young people and their impact in this Sunday’s PARADE Magazine that will reach 47 million people.

On Aug. 9 in Washington, D.C., these extraordinary young people were honored in special ceremony hosted by PARADE and generationOn, the youth service division of Points of Light Institute. Each honoree had the opportunity to tell the story of how they are marking their mark on the world and each energized those in attendance with their enthusiasm, passion and drive.

During the ceremony, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan encapsulated the honorees’ impact, saying, “By helping solve problems and meet needs in communities near and far, these students enrich their own lives, strengthen our country and improve conditions all over the world.”

Joining the celebration were a wide range of leaders including former Sen. Harris Wofford, former Washington Redskins player James Thrash, Steve Culbertson, president and CEO of Youth Service America, president and CEO of Parade Publications Jack Hare and Maggie Murphy, editor of PARADE Magazine.

The students were nominated in five categories: community, economics, education, environment and health. All the winners will be showcased on www.parade.com.

• Community: Joe Burgum, 18, of Fargo, N.D., believes that no one should ever go hungry. For four years, he has worked on the city’s annual Fill the Dome food drive. The effort has brought together students from local schools to collect 300 tons of food and $225,000 in donations for North Dakotans.
• Economics: After learning there were 29,000 homeless youth in Indiana who do not have basic necessities including food, clothing, and shelter, Amber Kriech, 16, of Carmel, Ind., managed the construction of a spiritual life center for Outreach, Inc. which works with 600 homeless youth each year.
• Education: Seeing horrifying footage of the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake inspired Grace Li, 16, of Pearland, Texas, to offer assistance. She co-founded We Care Act, through which students and teachers at 80 schools have given funds, supplies and comfort to young survivors of disasters.
• Environment: Benjamin McMullen, 17, from Chesterland, Ohio, knows it is critically important to actively preserve his community’s natural environment. To sustain it for the long term, he started two local groups that have taught kids about area wetlands, created outdoor classrooms at three schools, built nesting platforms for ospreys and planting 1,000 trees.
• Health: Born with a facial birthmark, Evan Ducker, 17, of Kingston, N.Y., wrote a book centered on a character who also has one. He has helped organize an annual read-along – 6,000 students took part in May – to increase tolerance.

The awards ceremony was followed by a forward-looking discussion with the PARADE All-America High School Service Team about the critical role of youth service as a force for changing the world. The discussion, facilitated by Juan Williams of Fox News, proposed ideas to inform a set of policies and priorities to support service in schools and empower youth as change agents.

These young people remind us of the power of idealism, passion and seeing the possibilities before us rather than just the obstacles.

When adults told Mary Grace Reeves, 16, of Pensacola, Fla., there were no resource, no money and nobody to create reading programs for young girls in the Gulf Coast, she responded simply, “I will do it.” And she did. She started American Girl book clubs that have touched 900 girls. She and the other 14 award winners remind us that we all can answer challenges of our day – we simply have to respond “Yes, I will do it.”

Yours in service,

Michelle Nunn

CEO Points of Light Institute

Change Notes: Volunteering in America

Friends,

The Corporation for National and Community Service’s (CNCS) annual Volunteering in America report found volunteers are resolute in their commitment to the nation, serving almost 8.1 billion hours in their communities in 2010.

Points of Light Institute, along with its volunteer activation division HandsOn Network, is focused on inspiring, equipping and mobilizing people to use their time, talent, voice and money to create change in their communities. This year’s report shows that despite economic pressures felt across the nation, 62.8 million citizens joined hands to make a difference.

The report shows that volunteers and nonprofit organizations have stepped in when needs arise, providing a powerful economic and social benefit to their communities. The value of this service is nearly $173 billion according to Independent Sector’s estimate of the dollar value of volunteer time. By focusing on our critical areas of needs – education, environment, economic development and emergency response – volunteers are filling gaps created by tighter budgets and fewer resources.

Notably, Generation X volunteers (born 1965 to 1981) devoted more time to service in 2010 than ever before, giving more than 2.3 billion hours. This demonstrates a shift researchers are seeing across the “volunteer lifecycle” – the arc of civic involvement that tends to increase as citizens feel a deeper connection to their community through personal networks, their workplace and their children’s schools, according to the report.

The future of service is also strong with teen volunteer rates staying consistently high, likely reflecting the spread of service learning in schools across the country, the influence of parental volunteering and the rise of technology making it easier to find volunteer opportunities. Organizations like generationOn, Points of Light Institute’s youth activation division, are helping to fuel this growth by partnering with teachers, parents, schools, community organizations and businesses, to give kids the opportunity to see firsthand the issues in their communities and the tools and resources they need to respond and become part of the solution. Since 1989, these types of efforts have caused the number of youth volunteering to double.

While the national volunteer rate has dropped slightly, those who serve are giving more time. The proportion of volunteers who serve 100 hours or more increased between 2009 and 2010 from 33.2 percent to 33.8 percent. The median number of hours served per volunteer appears to have increased from 50 to 52 per year. We believe this shows that Americans are identifying problems and taking it upon themselves to create solutions and make their communities stronger.

As volunteers fill critical voids in their communities’ infrastructure, state and local leaders increasingly recognize the key role volunteers play in addressing economic and social challenges at a time of fiscal constraint. Government leaders are looking to nonprofit organizations – like HandsOn Network affiliates – to meet a range of needs.

Three strong HandsOn Network affiliate cities had the strongest volunteer rates in the country. For the fifth year in a row, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, served by HandsOn Twin Cities, ranked number one for volunteering among large cities with a 37.1 percent volunteer rate. It is followed by Portland, served by Hands On Greater Portland, in second with 36.2 percent; Seattle, served by Seattle Works and United Way of King County Vounteer Center, ranked fourth with 33.9 percent.

“The population explosion in the Portland region has resulted in a volunteer explosion,” said Andy Nelson, executive director of Hands On Greater Portland. “While other regions have experienced similar booms, unique to Portland is that so many newcomers want to get involved. Hands On Greater Portland taps into this desire by providing volunteers with meaningful projects that get them in touch with their community. We know volunteers want to do good, they want to connect, to have a purpose and feel part of the community – that’s what we give them”

Each of these three cities is also part of HandsOn Networks’ Innovation Hubs initiative, designed to keep affiliates on the cutting edge of innovation, creating new ways to connect with individuals and create change. Each will be a learning lab for community engagement and will be supported through grants to drive innovation, build strong leadership and advance the mission of HandsOn Network through acquired skills and knowledge.

At the end of three years, the practices and learning emerging from the Innovation Hubs Initiative will form the blueprint for evolving the model of engagement across our network to meet 21st century needs of both volunteers and the communities in which they engage.

CNCS produces the annual Volunteering in America research to provide elected officials and nonprofit leaders with in-depth information on volunteering trends and demographics to help them develop strategies to mobilize more Americans to address local needs through service. The engagement of our citizens has never been more important and the CNCS study shows us that we have a strong foundation to build upon and that there is yet more to do.

Yours in service,

Michelle Nunn

CEO, Points of Light Institute

Change Notes: Help Us Save Service

Friends,

In a few terrifying moments on April 27 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and on May 23 in Joplin, Mo., life forever changed. Devastating tornadoes struck both communities, leaving behind lives lost, homes destroyed and communities permanently changed.

Within hours and over the following hard days, local citizens joined forces with

HandsOn Network

affiliates and other volunteer reception centers,

AmeriCorps

and VISTA members, RSVP volunteers and thousands of compassionate Americans to begin the recovery and rebuilding efforts. Volunteers and national service members delivered clean water. They transported the injured and the elderly to medical facilities. They managed call centers that logged thousands of daily inquiries, guiding those who needed assistance to social services and assigning volunteers to specific projects.

John Gomperts

, director of AmeriCorps, wrote an account of his visit to Joplin. The

article

showcases the extraordinary volunteer response to the May 22 tornado and the key volunteer management role played by AmeriCorps in the wake of natural disasters.

The framework for this kind of rapid and professional volunteer response to disaster is supported through the

Corporation for National and Community Service

and its critical programs including AmeriCorps, Senior Corps and the Volunteer Generation Fund. These programs are particularly important at a time of national austerity and challenge because they call upon our most important and renewable resource – our citizenry – to meet the critical needs of our communities. Since the Great Depression, the United States has offered willing Americans a chance to be a part of national volunteer programs that have immediate and lasting impacts in communities across the nation. We see that impact in the three billion trees planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1942, and we see it now in the rising test scores of students in the classrooms of Teach For America AmeriCorps teachers. We must convey to Congress that now is the time to redouble these efforts. We saw in both Joplin and Tuscaloosa an unprecedented numbers of spontaneous, unaffiliated volunteers – at one point in Joplin the number was in excess of 15,000. Resources like the Volunteer Generation Fund are desperately needed to screen, train, deploy and manage community volunteers to meet critical needs.

I hope that many of you will join the Save Service efforts on August 10 to meet with members of Congress while they are in their home districts to tell them your stories of volunteer service. A call-in day will be held on September 15 to reinforce our message. Urge them to support the Corporation for National and Community Service and the full range of service and volunteer programs that make a difference every day in American communities, both in response to natural disasters and in addressing the day-to-day challenges we face in education, in economic opportunity and in environmental stewardship.

At the National Conference on Service and Volunteering in New Orleans last month,

Gov. Haley Barbour

recalled the waves of volunteers who came to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina to help. Over the course of four years following the hurricane, 400,000 volunteers made the journey south to the Gulf coast, many of them returning two and three times with their families to be a part of the region’s revival. He has seen and he knows the power of service. “In our country,” said Gov. Barbour, “there are tens of millions of people who want to be your ally, who want to help, who want to get the chance.” Let’s make sure we tell Congress we want our country to continue to offer that chance to those who want to serve by maintaining strong levels of federal funding for AmeriCorps, the Volunteer Generation Fund and all national and community service programs.

Yours in service,

CEO, Points of Light Institute

Change Notes: 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance

Friends,

Last week, I had the honor of attending an extraordinary event in Washington, D.C., to launch the national campaign to inspire one million acts of service on the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance. I joined 9/11 families, first responders, military and members of Congress to stitch the National 9/11 Flag, damaged in the collapse of the World Trade Center. It was a moving and emotional event, and the perfect way to give the anniversary of the attacks a positive meaning.

The goal of the 9/11 Day initiative is to rekindle the spirit of unity that existed immediately after

Sept. 11, and honor the victims, heroes and all those who rose in service in response to the attacks that forever changed our nation. We put aside politics and gathered more than 40 Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress – including Rep. Peter King, Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi – to jointly participate in a unique ceremony that embodied the American spirit of hope, resilience and strength.

Jeff Parness, founder of the New York Says Thank You Foundation and a leader in the effort to restore the flag, told the assembled audience that this is “what America is all about.” He said this flag “tells the story of 9/11, but also of 9/12,” a nation able to come together and rebuild from tragedy.

Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, we were mourning those lost and trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy. Through collective grief, scores of Americans acted on our innate nature to serve and sought out ways to lend a hand, offer comfort and, ultimately, create positive change in our communities.

The number of volunteers spiked and reached an all-time national high in the immediate aftermath of September 11^th – a manifestation of the impulse we all felt to unite and mend the wounds of the nation.

As we mark the 10^th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, we have the opportunity to create a permanent and positive legacy that rekindles the spirit of unity that existed immediately after that day, and honor the victims, heroes and all those who rose in service in response to the terrorist attacks that changed our nation.

The 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance – formally designated by Congress in association with the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act passed in 2009 – is the day we remember and give tribute by doing something from our hearts that benefits and enriches someone else. We do something meaningful in memory of others. It is an important national milestone that brings us together through the powerful and unifying force of service.

The 9/11 Day initiative is led by MyGoodDeed.org and Points of Light Institute‘s volunteer activation division HandsOn Network. MyGoodDeed was founded by David Paine and Jay Winuk, who lost his brother Glenn in the collapse of the World Trade Center. Glenn was a lawyer and a volunteer firefighter who ran into the South Tower to help. Glenn’s heroism and devotion to community service inspired Jay to work with other family members to create MyGoodDeed and work to establish 9/11 as the National Day of Service and Remembrance.

MyGoodDeed and Points of Light’s Hands On Network will work in partnership with the 9/11 Memorial, Business Civic Leadership Center, AARP and The Mission Continues and thousands of other organizations to promote the observance of 9/11 through service. This effort is generously supported by American Express Company Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, JPMorgan Chase and Best Buy.

As the activation partner, HandsOn Network is creating opportunities throughout the country to create one million acts of service and build an enduring movement and legacy event to annually pay tribute to our national spirit of giving.

We will partner with our local HandsOn Network affiliates to host leadership events in Boston, New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., that will collectively engage more than 20,000 volunteers. These service projects will range from revitalizing local schools to supporting military veterans and their families, driving local emergency preparedness to engaging individuals in making long-term pledges to serve. Signature events will be driven by 20 additional HandsOn Network affiliates across the country, and countless organizations, communities and individuals will use 9/11 as a moment in time to take on the challenges they face.

A new “I Will” campaign will reach and inspire millions to participate in 9/11 Day. The campaign, which will include television, radio, digital and print messages running from Aug. 11 through Sept. 11, was designed by a powerful collaboration of creative organizations and will encourage all Americans to take part in the day.

9/11 is an extraordinarily powerful motivator for civic engagement. Independent research commissioned in 2010 by MyGoodDeed found that more than 60 percent of Americans today – and 84 percent of those between the ages of 21 and 35 – are ready to commemorate 9/11 through acts of charitable service or volunteerism.

Sen. Schumer told the crowd that there is “no greater thing for our country than to do a day of service.” There is “no more fitting memorial,” he said. To see news coverage of the event, click here.

To learn about service opportunities or find resources to give back, visit www.911day.org.

Yours in service,

CEO, Points of Light Institute