Bet More than Money on the World Series

I know what you’re thinking. What do baseball and volunteering have to do with each other? Well, normally nothing, unless you’re a volunteer coach, referee, team parent…well wait baseball and volunteering have a lot in common. So why don’t you make your bet on the World Series about volunteering too?

That’s what Mayor Bloomberg of New York and Mayor Nutter from Philadelphia are doing. Each is betting his team will win, and they’re putting their money where their mouth is, or volunteering in this case. The losing mayor will go and volunteer with the winning mayor’s project while wearing the winning team’s t-shirt. For Mayor Bloomberg, that means going to Philly to work on a public mural, or Mayor Nutter going to New York to work with Publicolor and students painting open spaces. The winner will also pay for a catered lunch for volunteers.

All this stems from Major League Baseball dedicating the first four games to community service for the first time. “Going Beyond” is a new initiative sponsored by MLB that supports programs for veterans, cancer research and youth development.

Think about that when you make your next bet.

Be a Couch Potato

The talk around the water cooler this morning, or the tea pot in our case, was about iParticipate, an exciting new concept brought about by the Entertainment Industry Foundation. The group has come together; along with the big four networks, to showcase volunteering in their shows for the week and encourage a “new era of service and volunteering.”

PSA’s have already been shown on TV and focus on five causes EIF is promoting, Education & Children, Health & Well Being, Economic Development, Environmental Conservation, and Support for Military Families.

During this week, all of your favorite shows will have story lines pertaining to volunteering and being a good member of your community including The Office (Laura’s and Amanda’s favorite) The Today Show (Heather’s favorite), and Bones (my favorite). We’ll all be watching

The real question is what are you going to do about it? Once this week is over, will you let it slip your mind until next year, or will you go to www.vcstory.org to volunteer to change to world?
Trish

Support from the top, but it takes each one of us

Public service has been a priority for many of our past presidents.

FDR started the Civilian Conservation Corps, JFK created the Peace Corps, and Lyndon B. Johnson fulfilled JFK's dream of a domestic Peace Corps by creating VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America).

In his 1989 Inaugural address, George H.W. Bush said, "I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging, sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding." And it goes on. He created the Commission on National and Community Service to support his service agenda.

Then President Clinton started the AmeriCorps program, which is increasingly growing in popularity.

Most recently, President Obama signed the Kennedy Serve America act into law, boosting the budget for AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service, launching the United We Serve Campaign, and making civic engagement central to his presidency.

Thanks to support from the national level, in recent years we've seen record surges in American volunteering. Schools engage their students in service learning, businesses support employee volunteering, and industries such as the entertainment industry shine the spotlight on service.

Michelle Nunn, the CEO of the Points of Light Institute, leaves us with this thought from her blog on the Huffington Post Impact page:

"With challenges like unemployment, the drop-out crisis, prisoner reentry and environmental degradation looming across our communities, the call to citizens to step up and make a difference has never been more important.


Stage One: service through government. Stage Two: service through community. And now Stage Three: Service central to our national priorities.

Twenty years after Bush's Points of Light, Obama's call to service comes not a moment too soon."

-Amanda

Getting Things Done

I am super excited to welcome two new AmeriCorps VISTAs to the Volunteer Center office. Trish and Laura started 2 weeks ago and have been getting their feet wet and figuring out what they're going to do all year.

Whenever I'm speaking with groups I ask who has heard of AmeriCorps VISTA, and two or three hands usually go up. Then I ask who has heard of the Peace Corps, and almost every hand shoots up. So, I like to explain VISTA as the domestic Peace Corps. We commit to one year of service (or 2 years, in some cases such as mine). VISTA stands for Volunteers in Service to America, and is focused on eliminating poverty. We do capacity building at an organization, rather than direct service. (There are other AmeriCorps programs, like NCCC, that focus on direct service).

The Volunteer Center has been really fortunate to have VISTAs supporting the office the past few years. Heather and I leave in December, but I'm excited to have these two months of overlapping time where we can all work together. Volunteerism is growing tremendously and it is such an exciting time to be a part of a national service program and in the heart of things at a Volunteer Center.

Anyway, Laura and Trish will probably be blogging on here from time to time, so we'll be sure to sign our names so you know who is talking. As always, if you have any comments or want to guest blog, let us know!

-Amanda