Thursday, July 9, 2009

United We Serve Update

United We Serve launched to much fanfare two weeks ago!

The First Lady officially kicked off our summer initiative on June 22 at the Corporation's National Conference on Service and Volunteering in San Francisco. That same day Cabinet Secretaries fanned out across the country to make a difference in local communities. Then on June 25 the President and First Family joined AmeriCorps NCCC in service alongside Congressional families by packing 15,000 backpacks for the children of our troops. For a look back at these remarkable activities, click on the following links:

Serve.gov, the online home of United We Serve, is now live. Your feedback on its functionality has been incredibly valuable. We are working closely with All For Good to make the search engine work better for you and for prospective volunteers. The purpose of this new platform is to get you connected with each other. Please submit additional concerns to All For Good here and we will continue to share with them the feedback we are receiving from the field.   

For volunteers who want to develop their own service projects with friends, family, and neighbors to address unmet needs, Serve.gov also offers easy-to-use toolkits by issue area to help volunteers get started, build a team, set outcome-oriented goals, and track their community impact.

Beginning next week we will start featuring stories of service on Serve.gov. Throughout the summer we will focus our spotlight on activities in priority issue areas. Our communications calendar includes the following themed weeks:

  • July 20 Community Renewal
  • July 27 Education
  • Aug 03 Energy & Environment
  • Aug 10 Health
  • Aug 24 Safety & Security
  • Aug 31 Interfaith Service

In addition to the stories we feature on Serve.gov in these issue areas, we hope that you will also shine your own spotlight on stories that reflect the work you do in your community. We encourage organizations and groups to highlight local efforts and draw attention to local needs by generating their own media this summer. To help, we have posted a media guide, sample press release, and sample media advisory in the newsroom at Serve.gov.

We thank you again for your participation in United We Serve and we look forward to strengthening your efforts this summer.

Gratefully,

The United We Serve Summer Team
ServiceInitiative@cns.gov


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About Me

The CalServe Network posts news and updates of interest to the service-learning field in California. News and updates are drawn from the CalServe List Serve and the National K-12 Service-Learning List Serve and various other sources.