National Service News: Our Healthier, Happier Senior Corps Volunteers

Service adds years to your life and life to your years! [] Having trouble viewing this email? [View it as a Web page](. [A newly released study details the health benefits of Senior Corps volunteering and service.]( Our Healthier, Happier Senior Corps Volunteers A new report released this week by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) provided more evidence that Senior Corps volunteering has benefits that improve the health and well-being of people age 55 and older. According to the research, [Senior Corps]( volunteers report much higher self-rated health scores, which is considered a valid marker of actual health, compared to older adults who don't volunteer. They also reported feeling significantly less depressed and isolated compared to non-volunteers. A companion study determined that caregivers found the assistance of Senior Companions beneficial and for some, the respite provided by our volunteers even improved their health. You can [learn more about these Senior Corps Health Benefit studies on our website](. "Senior Corps volunteers are not only improving the lives of others, they are also improving their own," said Senior Corps Director Deborah Cox-Roush. "These volunteers are feeling healthier and less depressed. What's also exciting is they say they feel less socially isolated, which we know has important health benefits." This study adds to the body of research that found health benefits from volunteering. All of our Senior Corps Foster Grandparent, Senior Companion, and RSVP volunteers are assets to the communities they serve. The wellness gains they get for their selfless acts show that good things really do happen to good people. "Our Senior Corps volunteers have a decades-long history of setting examples for all of us to follow by serving our friends and neighbors," said CNCS CEO Barbara Stewart. "We are grateful for the generosity of our super seniors and their commitment to making a difference in their communities." In service, Mike Cys Director, 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 [Click here to ;earn more about the impact of national service in your state.]( [New National Service State Profile Reports Available]( AmeriCorps and Senior Corps national service programs can be found in every U.S. state and territory. Each year, we comb through reams of data to summarize the impact our programs make, and we have new reports and graphics to share that information with the communities we serve. Visit the link below to find updated impact graphics for your state or more detailed information about national service where you live. [Find your state]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Foster Grandparent Isabel Guzman works with preschool children in Hartford, Connecticut.]( ['Foster Grandparents' Add Experience, Wisdom, and Love to Some Hartford Preschools (Senior Corps)]( While singing songs or making crafts, some Hartford preschoolers turn to Isabel Guzman for guidance. She's not the official classroom teacher. She has a special role. The kids call her "abuela" (Grandma). [Watch video]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Lindsey Adkisson discovered a pathway to her career through service in AmeriCorps VISTA.]( [Oregon Health & Science University Student Gains Valuable Experience Through Rural Health Program (AmeriCorps)]( Oregon Heath & Sciences University family nurse practitioner student Lindsey Adkisson is a bit of an overachiever. Coming from a wheat farming family in Dufur, her Oregonian roots go back six generations. And though she has lived several other places, Adkisson has always felt Oregon was home. So it's only natural that she found herself studying for her doctorate in nursing practice, specializing in family practice, in rural Oregon. ... What got Adkisson interested in public service after earning her bachelor's degree in business at Clemson University was a stint with the AmeriCorps VISTA program, where she worked near Roseburg for a year at a "one stop" family resource center, helping students who faced barriers in traditional school. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Watch It: The Health Benefits of Senior Corps [Watch this video to see examples of the ways Senior Corps volunteers lead healthier lives through service to their community.]( ]( Each week, we provide a social media shareable to use on your networks. As we release the latest results from our Senior Corps Health Benefits study, we thought this would be a good time to share a video that shows our volunteers in action and the many ways it makes a positive impact on their lives. Take a few minutes to watch this video and see how Senior Corps service changes communities for the better. And help us spread this message by sharing the video with friends and followers on your social media networks. --------------------------------------------------------------- National Service in the News [West Hancock Elementary students Mia Sanchez, right, and Carson Fox, left, write to their Senior Corps RSVP pen pals. (GlobeGazette photo)]( [Seniors, West Hancock Students, Become Friends Through Letters (Senior Corps)]( Britt News Tribune, Iowa Pen pal letter day is a red-letter day for fourth-graders at West Hancock Elementary. The children get excited when their teacher opens the packet of letters from their senior citizen correspondents and distributes them. Waiting for a reply from her pen pal is "like waiting for your birthday," said fourth-grader Carlie Johnson. West Hancock is among the elementary schools participating in the RSVP of North Central Iowa Pen Pals program. Each student in participating classes is matched with a pen pal from RSVP, which recruits adults 55 and older to use their skills, talents, and life experience to help meet community needs through volunteer service. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Volunteering Helps Keep Seniors Healthy, New Study Suggests (Senior Corps)]( National Service Newsroom A new independent report that provides evidence that consistent volunteering can improve the health and well-being of people age 55 and older was released by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency responsible for the nation's volunteer and service efforts. The research examined how participation in national service contributes to changes in the health and well-being of Senior Corps volunteers in the Senior Companion and Foster Grandparent programs. Senior Companions help homebound seniors maintain independence and Foster Grandparents mentor young children in need. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [AmeriCorps Workers Improve Themselves— And Their Job Prospects— While Making Montana’s Parks Better Places to Visit]( Montana Outdoors, Montana In 2015 Jacob Jost was grinding out 50-hour work weeks as a mortgage broker in Las Vegas. Between meetings and emails, he dreamed of a completely different life, one without fluorescent lights and ringing cell phones. “I was making good money, but I realized what I really wanted was a career in the outdoors,” he says. Not knowing what that entailed, Jost decided that becoming a park ranger would combine his passion for the outdoors with his desire for public service. “I Googled ‘How to become a park ranger.’ That led me to AmeriCorps and Montana State Parks.” [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [City Year CEO Michael Brown Stepping Down After 30 Years (AmeriCorps)]( Mass Nonprofit News, Massachusetts City Year, a Boston-based national education nonprofit that helps students and schools succeed, earlier this week announced that its co-founder Michael Brown will step down from his CEO position in June at the conclusion of the organization’s 30th anniversary year. City Year said Brown will serve as a senior adviser to the organization through June 2020 to support the leadership transition and promote the success of The City Year Campaign, City Year’s current capital campaign. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Recent College Grad Serves to Help Inmates with Opioid Substance Use Disorders (AmeriCorps)]( Serve Minnesota Blog, Minnesota Sarah Paulus takes her daily To Do list in stride: Create a resource guide, build and populate a database, visit a state prison. Indeed, this might not be the typical kind of service that people expect from AmeriCorps, but as the first AmeriCorps member placed in the Minnesota Department of Corrections through [MORe Corps]( Paulus is helping her team fight one of the persistent public health crises today: Opioid addiction. MORe Corps is the Minnesota Opioid Response Corps, and its AmeriCorps members help organizations build capacity in order to quickly and thoughtfully address the opioid epidemic. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Foster Grandparents Are Role Models (Senior Corps)]( The Post-Journal, New York Jane Hughan, or Grandma Jane as the kids know her, worked with UPK students in Kim Knight’s class on writing their letters. She explains what they will be doing, but just as importantly, she encourages them to draw the letter “a.” Grandma Jane, along with Grandma Bonnie Johnson who works with third graders in Heidi Maggio’s classroom, volunteer their time helping children through the Lutheran Foster Grandparent program. Grandma Jane has been a Foster Grandparent for seven years and Grandma Bonnie for nine years. The Foster Grandparent program currently has 20 volunteers in the Jamestown schools. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Bend-based Environmental Center Growing Garden Programs (AmeriCorps)]( The Bulletin, Oregon The Environmental Center in Bend was recently awarded a $5,000 grant to grow its garden education programs in schools across the region. The sustainability organization will use the grant, from the Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation, to fund a FoodCorps service member and support its Central Oregon Garden Educators Network. The FoodCorps service member, Tracy Ryan, teaches students about healthy foods at Bear Creek Elementary School in Bend and Three Rivers Elementary School in Sunriver. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [RSVP to Use Recent Award to Boost Osteo Bone Builders Program (Senior Corps)]( Oswego County News Now, New York A recent regional award from Excellus BlueCross BlueShield will benefit hundreds of people who attend Osteo Bone Builders classes offered by the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) of Oswego County, a division of SUNY Oswego’s Office of Business and Community Relations. RSVP was one of seven winners among 30 community nonprofits applying for the 2019 Community Health Award, which carried an allocation of up to $4,000 per award to help fund health and wellness programs in the company’s five-county Central New York region. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Environmental Police Join Fight Against Opioid Deaths (AmeriCorps)]( Gloucester Daily Times, Massachusetts The Massachusetts Environmental Police is now equipping all of its officers with the overdose reversal drug Narcan and resources for helping addicts. A partnership with the Gloucester-based Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative will allow the Environmental Police to make Narcan, known generically as naloxone, available to each of its officers and in first-aid kits aboard two Environmental Police patrol boats. Officers will also be trained to establish local connections with people and groups that can help addicts after they've been revived with Narcan. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [100 Homes Weatherized Through Home Energy Uplift Program (AmeriCorps)]( The News, Tennessee To date, 100 homes have undergone extensive weatherization upgrades through the Nashville Electric Service (NES) Home Energy Uplift program (HEU). In marking this milestone, Mayor David Briley announced new funding for HEU to weatherize more homes this year. Cost to upgrade these 100 homes totaled $864,000. The HEU program is made possible through the collaboration with NES, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA). Supporters of HEU also include AmeriCorps VISTA for the Nashville Promise Zone, MDHA, and CLEAResult. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [The New 'Old College Try' - College Now Greater Cleveland Says Yes to Economic Development (AmeriCorps)]( Crain's Cleveland Business, Ohio Less than a decade ago, Cleveland Scholarship Programs had about 45 employees and a budget of approximately $4 million. Today, the organization is known as College Now Greater Cleveland, its budget has more than tripled, to about $13 million, and its staff has quadrupled to about 180. It offers more programs and services in more places than it did in the past, and the support it offers local students will continue to grow as the organization is a significant partner in Cleveland’s Say Yes to Education initiative. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [The Benefits of Volunteering Get Renewed Attention (CNCS)]( Nonprofit Quarterly, Massachusetts In a recent report entitled "Where Are America’s Volunteers: A Look at America’s Widespread Decline in Volunteering in Cities and States," researchers Robert T. Grimm and Nathan Dietz found that despite experiencing historic highs in the amount of charitable donations and the number of volunteer hours contributed to nonprofits, the country is simultaneously experiencing a two-decade low in the percentage of Americans that volunteer or donate to charity. In an opinion piece written for The Hill, Myung J. Lee and Marc A. Ott, executive directors of Cities of Service and ICMA respectively, see this as surprising, given that voter participation is higher than ever. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- [Free Tutoring at Youngstown, Boardman Libraries to Help K-3 Readers (AmeriCorps)]( WFMJ-TV, Ohio The Public Library of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley and a group of tutors from the Ohio Reading Corps are looking to helps young children in the Valley read better. Ohio Reading Corps and The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County will offer free after-school reading tutoring to K-3 students over a period of six weeks. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- News You Can Use [Service Year Virtual Career Fair Coming Up Feb. 15]( The Service Year Alliance Virtual Career Fair will connect you with public, private, and nonprofit employers interested in having AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, and other service year alumni on their teams. All employers at the fair will have open jobs and recruiters available to talk one-on-one with you as you network from the comfort of your home, office, smartphone, or tablet. Many of the employers participating in this event will be [Employers of National Service](. Aimed at creating recruitment, hiring, and advancement opportunities for national service alumni, Employers of National Service is an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Peace Corps, National Peace Corps Association, and Service Year Alliance to support professional life after national service. [Learn 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](