AmeriCorps.
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
In September of 1993 president William Jefferson Clinton signed the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, creating the Corporation for National Service, merging VISTA and the NCCC with the AmeriCorps program under the charge of meeting the needs of America's communities. Through AmeriCorps and its two other programs, Learn and Serve America and the National Senior Service Corps, America is beginning to feel the impact of home-based volunteerism.
Seen as a "domestic Peace Corps", AmeriCorps employs some 50,000 people each year with the common goal of serving America's communities. State to state programs vary, but can include such objectives as building and weatherizing wheelchair ramps for the disabled, decreasing illiteracy, violence prevention, groundwater awareness, bridging the "Digital Divide", and tutoring young students after school. Each program employs a range of volunteers, not only in number but also in age, ethnicity, and background, and there are hundreds of programs nationwide.
Members can serve full or part time (1700 and 900 required service hours respectively) and, aside from a modest living stipend, can receive benefits including an educational award upon completion of their term of service. Service terms usually last one year, however some members are eligible for another year of service following completion of the first.
Apart from the monetary benefits, members also receive training, with 20% of their AmeriCorps time mandated for professional development, and receive the satisfaction of contributing their time to benefit others within a sometimes physically and mentally challenging environment.
In 1994, president Clinton, with support from a bipartisan coalition in Congress, introduced legislation to reauthorize AmeriCorps and other national service programs into the twenty-first century and while the effect these programs have may be hard to scientifically measure, it is not difficult to see the difference in not only the community, but in the volunteers themselves.
Seen as a "domestic Peace Corps", AmeriCorps employs some 50,000 people each year with the common goal of serving America's communities. State to state programs vary, but can include such objectives as building and weatherizing wheelchair ramps for the disabled, decreasing illiteracy, violence prevention, groundwater awareness, bridging the "Digital Divide", and tutoring young students after school. Each program employs a range of volunteers, not only in number but also in age, ethnicity, and background, and there are hundreds of programs nationwide.
Members can serve full or part time (1700 and 900 required service hours respectively) and, aside from a modest living stipend, can receive benefits including an educational award upon completion of their term of service. Service terms usually last one year, however some members are eligible for another year of service following completion of the first.
Apart from the monetary benefits, members also receive training, with 20% of their AmeriCorps time mandated for professional development, and receive the satisfaction of contributing their time to benefit others within a sometimes physically and mentally challenging environment.
In 1994, president Clinton, with support from a bipartisan coalition in Congress, introduced legislation to reauthorize AmeriCorps and other national service programs into the twenty-first century and while the effect these programs have may be hard to scientifically measure, it is not difficult to see the difference in not only the community, but in the volunteers themselves.
