I'm posting an email which grew out of a discussion Rik Flynn and I had on one of the many drives home from PA about how we can continue to work for change in our own community. Rik was a Vista volunteer back in the day and we're hoping President-elect Obama is introducing a similar project on change.gov with America Serves (see below). We'd love your ideas & suggestions.
Change.gov excerpt:
The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
Our thoughts:
One, "first blush" thought that might be to include in the conversation(s) is how to tap into existing, well-functioning organizations (I'm thinking of a simile of Barack's notion with the federal budget, working with it, with a scalpel rather than an axe) such as United Way of Ulster County. I had a modest bit of dealings with it and Stacey Rein (head of United Way, Ulster County) when I was a School to Work Coordinator with BOCES. To my knowledge United Way does a great, very cost-efficient job of raising money for various non-profit organizations. But I don't know that there is a parallel effort for identifying and soliciting volunteers needed for these organizations. Perhaps one of the things to explore is some kind of coordinated networking with such an organization that would put the "human capitol", a volunteer base, into the mix along with the monetary channeling and networking? Perhaps maintaining a database of needs correlated with identified volunteers and their availability including occasional as well as more scheduled, routine efforts. Sorta like a "Red Cross" that dealt with non-profit organizations in a non-crisis mode? Maybe also bringing in leading politicos and administrators in such an effort, e.g. the new County Administrator; the U.C. Legislature to promote and work with other organizations?
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I'm so glad to hear many of you express interest in continuing to work for change, because as President-Elect Obama makes clear on his new website, change.gov, he still needs our help. I'm hoping we can use this forum to begin a discussion of how we can further effect change in our own community and beyond. One idea I'd like to suggest is an UlsterCorps, sort of a local PeaceCorps, to facilitate community service here in Ulster County. I know many of you already volunteer your time regularly, and I would love you suggestions on specific projects and programs to help out with, and how we can motivate others to get & stay involved. Perhaps we could coordinate Service Saturdays working with different organizations each week, or a Thanksgiving Day Drive for Change/ Meals on Wheels to spread the joy & gratitude we are all feeling??
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