National Service News: Real Heroes, No Capes

We think national service is incredible! [] Having trouble viewing this email? [View it as a Web page](. [Our national service heroes in AmeriCorps and Senior Corps don't wear capes. Edna Mode approves.] Real Heroes, No Capes If you were within the gravitational field of a movie theater last weekend, you were possibly there to catch up with the Parr family of superheroes (a.k.a., "The Incredibles") 14 years after their initial film adventure. And, of course, Edna Mode. Edna, fashion designer to the supers, delivered a scene-stealing monologue in the first movie to Mr. Incredible describing the one prohibition in her work for heroes — no capes! That works for us. At the Corporation for National and Community Service, we get to see [AmeriCorps]( members and [Senior Corps]( volunteers perform heroic deeds every day as they serve around the nation to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement. They come to save the day [for kids in preschools]( assist [students who need mentors]( and [tutors]( and [encourage veterans attending college]( They stand for the hungry at [summer feeding programs]( [provide respite to caregivers]( [patrol neighborhoods to improve safety]( and [help communities to battleÂ]( abuse andÂ]( opioid crisis](. They [rush to the aid of survivors after natural disasters]( [fight wildfires]( and [ensure our elders can make it to their doctor's appointments]( They go where they are needed to [lift people up from poverty]( and [stand behind fellow soldiers in Veterans Courts](. There are nearly 300,000 national service participants who make it their goal to "get things done" every day. They don't need to don super suits to access their superpowers, they are always ready to help. You can identify them by their AmeriCorps "A" or Senior Corps "S" while they serve. After all, not all heroes wear capes. In Service, CNCS Office of External Affairs --------------------------------------------------------------- Editor's note: By clicking the links below, you may be connecting to websites created by parties other than the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The CNCS Office of External Affairs provides links to these stories because they contain information that may be useful or interesting to the national service and volunteering community. These links are for reference only, and CNCS does not endorse the individuals or organizations associated with these links, and cannot attest to the accuracy of the information provided by websites outside of our control. --------------------------------------------------------------- The Impact of National Service [AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer served at the Athens-Clarke County Library this year to work with teens and reduce disruptions at the facility.]( [Calming the Chaos: VISTA Program Engages Teens at Library (AmeriCorps)]( On weekdays, the Athens-Clarke County Library on Baxter Street is a popular destination for students from nearby Clarke Middle and Clarke Central High schools. And this year, after the University of Georgia’s Office of Service-Learning placed an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) staffer at the library, the place has hummed with activity. With no daily programming for the students last year, the library staff was busy keeping the peace as dozens of students gathered to hang out and socialize. Now, sixth- to 12th-grade students are playing chess, painting with water colors, and learning how to play drums, among other things. More than 5,000 middle and high school students have participated in more than 200 after-school programs offered at the library so far. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Foster Grandparent Joe Mattox, 76, has been serving with the Senior Corps program in Omaha, NE, since 2002.]( [Meet 'Papa Joe,' a Foster Grandparent Fearless in Helping Kids Become Their Best Original Self (Senior Corps)]( Fearlessly. That’s how Joe Mattox, 76, served his country as a communications specialist in the U.S. Air Force, his community as an Omaha firefighter for 25 years, and now, the next generation as a deeply dedicated Foster Grandparent. “I love what I’m doing,” Mattox says. “It gives me purpose in life.” “Papa Joe” to the students he interacts with – sometimes a dozen a day – Mattox has been with the Foster Grandparents program since 2002. It's a national effort funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service and local sponsor the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging. Involved five days a week, Mattox splits his time between Wilson Focus School in Omaha and Immanuel Medical Center’s Mental Health Services. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Playworks AmeriCorps member Claire Collins is a coach with the program that helps bring recess back to schools.]( [Somerville’s Claire Collins Harnesses the ‘Power of Play’]( As a kid, Somerville’s Claire Collins, 23, loved recess. It was her time during the school day where she could play games with her peers, try new things, and imagine what life would be like as an adult. However, recess for kids nowadays is different. Many kids aren’t playing and conflicts that arise on the playground often carry into the classroom, impacting teaching and learning time. Consequently, time on the playground is undervalued as a learning opportunity. Now, as a coach for Playworks New England, Collins is working to restore recess to what she remembers, providing kids with access to safe and healthy play every day. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Share It: AmeriCorps Helps Kilauea Survivors [Twenty AmeriCorps NCCC members are in Hawaii to assist survivors of the Kilauea volcanic eruption and earthquakes.]( ]( Each week, we provide a social media shareable to use on your networks. A few days ago, three teams of [AmeriCorps members left for Hawaii to join assistance efforts for survivors of the recent Kilauea volcanic eruption and earthquakes](. The teams departed from the AmeriCorps NCCC campus in Vicksburg, Miss., and continued on to Hawaii from the Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport. The 20 young people all serve through FEMA Corps, a unit of AmeriCorps NCCC. They were previously deployed to Puerto Rico to support Hurricane Maria recovery. Help us recognize this crew by sharing info about this effort on your social media networks. --------------------------------------------------------------- National Service in the News [AmeriCorps Members Deploy to Hawaii for Disaster Response (AmeriCorps)]( Maui Now, Hawaii Three teams of AmeriCorps members have been deployed to Hawaii to join assistance efforts for evacuees of the ongoing KÄ«lauea volcanic eruption. A total of 20 AmeriCorps members from FEMA Corps departed for the island on Saturday from Jackson, Miss. Immediately upon arrival, the AmeriCorps members began work to ensure that evacuees receive timely and accurate information about the resources and assistance available to them. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Senior Volunteer Enjoys the Social Aspects of Her Work (Senior Corps)]( Fairfax City Patch, Virginia "I just cannot say enough about how much volunteering has benefited me," says RSVP Northern Virginia volunteer and engagement leader Sue Dussinger. Dussinger began her RSVP experience in 2016 after volunteering at an information booth at the Fairfax Fall Festival in the City of Fairfax with then-RSVP volunteer specialist Nadia Hoonan. "It started me off knowing that I wanted to do more with RSVP," Dussinger said of the experience. She also helped staff the same booth with current RSVP volunteer specialist Carly Hubicki at the 2017 festival. Prior to joining RSVP, Dussinger had more than a decade of volunteer work under her belt with Volunteer Fairfax's Volunteers for Change program which she says she thoroughly enjoyed. RSVP Northern Virginia is a program of Volunteer Fairfax, Volunteer Arlington, and Volunteer Alexandria. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Free Summer Meal Programs Begin This Month (AmeriCorps)]( The Daily Inter Lake, Montana The last bell has rung and school is out for summer, but that doesn’t mean children have to go hungry. The free summer meals program begins this month with several sites beginning service on June 11 as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program and sponsored by local school districts or organizations.This summer, Kalispell Public Schools will roll out its new food truck purchased this year through a No Kid Hungry $15,000 grant. The food truck was added to the district’s summer meals program in order to add more sites and reach children who may not be able to access the program because of a lack of transportation. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Ten Acts of Kindness by Southwest Florida Seniors (Senior Corps)]( The News-Press, Florida Several weeks ago, I was in rural Charleston Park, where I’ve written about groundwater contamination. News-Press photographer Andrew West and I worried when we saw the home of a frail man we had interviewed vacant. Soon we learned Dr. Piper Center Senior Companion volunteer Linda Francis had convinced the man to seek nursing care and continued to visit him. This was a feat, we imagined, as we witnessed how he had, several months earlier, turned away simple offers of help. I wrote a note of gratitude to Dr. Piper Center for Social Services. The Fort Myers-based organization serves the elderly, frail, and children in five Southwest Florida counties. These kind acts are a daily affair, they reported back. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Salinas Woman Gets Free $15k Solar Panel Set, 1,000th Installed on Central Coast (CNCS)]( The Californian, California When Consuelo Sandoval arrived at her East Salinas home Tuesday afternoon from her vegetable packing job, the house had a new addition: about $15,000 worth of solar panels being installed for free. They weren't a surprise, but a welcome sight nonetheless, said Sandoval through a translator. Her one-story home, where she lives with her daughter and granddaughter, was the 1,000th Central Coast home to get free solar panels as part of the GRID Alternatives' Energy for All Program, said Justin Hitchcock, the non-profit's regional director. It's also the 100th Salinas home to get panels, he said. Funding is mostly through state grants as well as city of Salinas community development block grants, he said. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [RSVP Honors, Thanks Volunteers (Senior Corps)]( The Pioneer, Michigan Without volunteers, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program wouldn’t exist. To thank the people who make the program — and the work done through it every year — possible, a special recognition luncheon took place Thursday. “It’s seniors helping seniors,” said Linda Connell, RSVP director. “If people never help each other and only care about themselves, the world would become a crueler, sadder place and we need all the help we can get these days.” While the event program listed dozens and dozens of people who give their time, talent, and energy to helping others, three individuals were specially honored as the RSVP Volunteers of the Year. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [AmeriCorps Mentors Begin Summer of Service Program with Energy Express]( WBOY-TV, West Virginia Last week, more than 500 AmeriCorps mentors began a summer of service program with Energy Express. An official swearing in ceremony was held in Morgantown, as well as Charleston. Thousands of children will be served through the free eight-week summer reading and nutrition program.Through Energy Express, children will gain or maintain reading levels during the summer months. The program also provides children with two nutritious meals each day. "Every year, kids that come to Energy Express programs gain about 2.8 months on average in reading achievement and so not only do they eliminate that summer learning slide that kids face, but they also improve over the summer. So they start back to school in the fall much more confident in their reading skills and more aligned with their peers," said Heather Foster, Volunteer WV.  [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [A Thousand Points of Light: Bush Sailors Volunteer Throughout Hampton RoadsÂ]( Defense Visual Information Distribution Service Sailors from the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) descended upon the Hampton Roads area June 18 to take part in multiple community service events as a birthday tribute to the ship’s namesake, former President George H.W. Bush, who turned 94 on June 12. Approximately 1,000 sailors took part in one of the largest single-day community relation visits in the area, representing President Bush’s famous “Thousand Points of Light” speech. “Bush has famously championed the benefits of volunteering and giving back to the community,” said Capt. Sean Bailey, the ship’s commanding officer. “Our regional, multi-location volunteer project is the perfect tribute, and what better way to say ‘happy birthday’ to our namesake than to lend a hand through these various community relations activities in and around our beloved homeport.” [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [AmeriCorps Superheroes]( Volunteer Iowa Blog, Iowa It’s so much fun to sit down, watch these movies, and enter worlds where there are people who harbor these powers and fantastic things happen. Many of us, children and adults alike, look up to these characters and aspire to be like them. When we live in a world without magic and superpowers, where do our superheroes lie? Well to me, superheroes are everyday people who go out of their way to make the world a better place for others—and that’s what AmeriCorps members do. Across our nation, AmeriCorps members are using their own superpowers to effect change, help others, and uphold their civic responsibility. Think about the AmeriCorps members that were deployed to Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico, to clean up, rebuild houses, and organize volunteers. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Detroit Honors 71 AmeriCorps on Graduation Day (AmeriCorps)]( The Detroit News, Michigan This time last year, Abbey Bradley, 25, returned home to Grosse Pointe after teaching English in Peru and was job searching. A friend referred her to AmeriCorps. For the last 10 months, she has been serving fourth-graders at Bethune Elementary on Detroit's west side through the national service program. Bradley and 70 others mostly from the Midwest gathered for their goodbyes Thursday during a graduation ceremony for their service with AmeriCorps, which helps improve lives and fosters civic engagement. Andrew Stein, executive director of the City Year Detroit program that trains AmeriCorps teachers, said the 2018 graduates were exceptional, serving "more hours and were more dedicated than any class I've seen in my 19 years" in AmeriCorps. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [In Era Of Government Scarcity, Public-Private Partnerships Bridge Community Needs (CNCS)]( Saporta Report Solving problems like poverty, or inequities in housing, education or healthcare, is an expensive undertaking, and the gap between what’s required and what’s actually available, especially from public resource pools, is dramatic and widening. With every passing day, the social and economic problems facing local communities grow steeper, even as governments’ capacity to functionally address them shrinks. Indeed, some of our nation’s most persistent social ills have persisted for generations, and not for lack of trying. But as resource scarcity increasingly defines a government’s willingness and capacity to engage, a new solution mode has emerged that lessens the burden on the public sector by leveraging the innovation and agility of the private sector. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [RSVP Volunteers Honored for a Lifetime of Service (Senior Corps)]( The Daily Herald, Washington The Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of Catholic Community Services held its annual volunteer recognition luncheon on May 23. Ralph Quaas and Judy Edgmand were honored as recipients of the President’s Volunteer Service Lifetime Achievement Award. The national honor is reserved for volunteers with at least 4,000 hours of documented service and is awarded through qualified nonprofits and other service groups. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Volunteering as an Older Adult: How to Find the Right Fit for Your New LifestyleÂ]( The Northern Light, Washington There are many great rewards to volunteering – no matter what age you get started. Studies show that men and women at, beyond or approaching retirement age can benefit greatly from volunteer work. The reasons why older adults volunteer varies, but in its 2014 survey the AARP’s Experience Corps found that 97 percent of its volunteers indicated that their volunteer work with the organization gave them a sense of purpose. Older adults who want to volunteer but have little or no history with volunteering might not know where to begin with regard to finding the right opportunity. The right fit can make all the difference for volunteers and the people they help, and the following tips might help older adults as they look for an opportunity that best utilizes their skills and experience. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [How Virtual Advisers Help Low-Income Students Apply To College (AmeriCorps)]( WDIY-FM, Pennsylvania Some high school students think of applying to colleges as a full-time job. There are essays and tests, loads of financial documents to assemble and calculations to make. After all that comes a big decision — one of the biggest of their young lives. For top students who come from low-income families, the challenge is particularly difficult. Research shows that 1 in 4 juggle all of that — the writing, the studying, the researching and applying — completely on their own. One approach to make this whole process easier? Pair students up with someone who can help, a mentor or adviser, virtually. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- News You Can Use [1,700 Reading, Math Tutors Sought for Minnesota Schools]( Prairie Business Magazine, Minnesota Minnesota Reading Corps places trained tutors in child care programs, preschools, and elementary schools. Last school year, 30,000 children received one-on-one literacy training for 20 minutes each day. For the 2018-19 school year, the group is seeking 1,400 tutors, and its counterpart — Minnesota Math Corps — is seeking 300 math tutors. There's a need for 1,700 volunteers in 77 of Minnesota's 87 counties. [Read more]( ---------------------------------------------------------------   [AmeriCorps]( |  [Senior Corps]( |  [Volunteer Generation Fund]( [NationalService.gov](  |  [Manage Preferences]( [twitter link]( link]( link]( link]( link]( link]( link]( --------------------------------------------------------------- This email was sent to {EMAIL} using GovDelivery Communications Cloud on behalf of: Corporation for National & Community Service · 250 E. Street SW · Washington, DC 20525 · (202) 606- 5000 · (800) 833-3722 [GovDelivery logo](