[For those that don't know, one of the things I would like to do is use my experiences in Americorps (and yours, as well) to write a book for those who are thinking about going into Americorps - telling them what it's like, what they can expect, what they can't expect and so on.]

I’m going to include my first chapter outline draft below. If anyone’s reading this and would like to offer feedback on what I have so far, please do. The more input, the merrier. You can comment here or send me an email to the address in the sidebar (scroll down to the bottom).

Note that the outline doesn’t scan quite right vis-a-vis numbering and lettering, because of the ordered list coding for this template, so I had to mix bullets and numbers to make sense.

Americorps Book Chapter Outline

Blurb (from blog) [Editor's note: This is just pasted in here for potential use in the book's marketing copy.]

You will hate Americorps. You will love Americorps. You will dread getting out of bed, and you will wish you didn’t have to go home. It will be the worst decision you ever made and the best thing you’ve ever done. You will count off days like a felon marking time and you will miss it terribly when you’re done. Sometimes, several of these things will happen in the same day. Welcome to a life spent in service to the greater good: It’s the Vomit Comet of right action, complete with breathtaking climbs, stomach-dropping falls, heady views and jewel-like moments of perfect, weightless exhilaration and clarity that make it all worthwhile.

1. Introduction
• About Americorps
• History of Americorps
• My experiences with Americorps
2. Chapter 1: Why Americorps
• Giving back/Community building
• Experience/Training
• Educational Award
• Networking
3. Chapter 2: What To Know Before You Go
• Income and work restrictions
• Using social services
• Benefits and shortfalls (health insurance, etc)
• Political and religious restrictions
• Dead trees – Americorps and paperwork
• Acting like a professional
• Keeping track of trainings/etc
• Culture shock – personal (dealing with the Americorps vow of poverty, being out of school and in the trenches) and program-related (dealing with other team members, people you’re helping, program members, etc)
• Building a team from scratch
4. Chapter 3: Killing the Buddha (ditching the “Make-It-Better Fairy” mindset)
• Starting over every year (you can’t save the world in a year – you’ll be spending the first 4 months just figuring out how to work the equipment)
• Ungrateful wretches (dealing with the reality that saving the world is not always appreciated by the saved, and is sometimes outright ignored, disparaged, road-blocked, resisted and condemned by same) [Editor's note: yes, the title of this bullet point is tongue in cheek]
• Dealing with doubt – the long, dark night of the soul (reference Mother Teresa letters)
• Ego vs work – being responsible for the work, not the results (i.e. take pride in doing well those aspects of the work you can control, but don’t hang your personal sense of accomplishment on the qualities of the final results, over which you have no influence; handing out food boxes is a worthy activity, even if overall hunger rates don’t decrease in your service year)
• Honoring those you serve – Seeing beyond surface labels (seeing the Buddha within the beggar/Christ within the junkie); respecting their humanity even if you can’t respect their choices; a Buddhist monk begging offers townspeople the chance for compassion and generosity, just as those you serve give you the chance to practice the same, so be sure to say “thank you.”
5. Chapter 4: A Bureaucracy of Angels (working in a non-profit)
• Budgets, Bureaucracies and Blowhards – the non-profit and the community (dealing with NIBMY’s, laws, politics, community issues, funding issues, personality problems, actions restricted and required by the org’s charter/status and so on.)
• Saving the world is like working in a coalmine – a lot of dirty work no one else wants to do, for little pay and less appreciation. OTOH, you light up the world. Yay!
• Finding your place – sometimes Americorps members are welcome, well-fitted parts in a well-oiled machine of public services, sometimes they are disrespected scutwork interns caught in the middle of internecine political battles, budget shortfalls and turf wars.
6. Chapter 5: Getting Started
• Branches of Americorps
1. NCCC
2. Americorps National
3. Americorps State
4. Americorps Vista
5. Professional Corps
6. Senior Corps
7. Others
• Researching Americorps Programs
• Application Process
7. Chapter 6: A Year of Service
• Orientation
• Placement
• Launch
• Day in the life (chapter of stories from alums)
• Service Projects and Days of Service
• Trainings, retreats and summits – Americorps events
• Graduation
• Breaking up is hard to do
• Should I stay or should I go – pros and cons of dropping out of your term of service, what to expect, pro-rated benefits, paperwork
8. Chapter 7: A Lifetime of Service
• Americorps Alums
• Continuing your work

However, I still intend to write a book about Americorps. So, when that happens, I’ll probably open this blog back up to use as a sandbox for idea, and for pimpin’ da goods.

In the meantime, I’ll leave everything up and available. I’m not taking the blog down or anything. So all the stuff will be here for the edification of future stumblers-upon. (Hi!)

So, for now, goodbye, good luck and good hanging with ya!

Soni

5. In the early 1990s, following the death of both her father and a close friend from college, Michelle reassessed her life. Rethinking her career path, she decided to leave the corporate law world to work in public service. She took a job in the mayor’s office and then in the city’s office of planning and development. In 1993, Michelle became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago, an AmeriCorps national service program that provided training to young adults pursuing careers in the public sector.

It looks like public services is a deep vein in the Obama family. Always good to know.

“I was just thinking all over again what an astonishing human being he was,” Clinton told the crowd.

“He had a quality that was relatively rare in public service, government service, at the time. He could take a vision and turn it into a reality.”

The new leadership program is divided into 3 parts:

The Eli J. Segal Citizen Service Fellowship will provide stipends to create 15 summer internships at Brandeis, in which students will serve with selected non-profits and other organizations dedicated to public service.

The Segal Fellows Network will serve to connect Segal Fellows and others who have been recognized in programs created in Segal’s honor, as well as Americorps Alums, in an effort to foster relationships that will boost community service efforts and effectiveness, and make the Segal Fellowship credential more valuable and useful.

The Eli J. Segal Memorial Lecture will provide lectures from prominent leaders – including policy makers, service leaders, social entrepreneurs, Segal Network members, etc. – speaking on the subjects of civic leadership and public service.

Knowing that I’m a writer by trade, the chapter leader asked me to help out by writing up the flyer/handout that goes out to the students explaining the contest. It was fun, easy and felt good to be doing something to keep my hand in with my Americorps program. It’s that whole “Lifetime of Service” thing – it sounds cheesy sometimes when you say it, but it really is nice to be a part of something that continues after your year or two of service is up.

Anyway, just wanted to share what I’m up to. I can’t wait to see the essays when they come in (I think I remember volunteering to help judge, as well; I may live to regret that ).

The writer mentions the Americorps Senior Corps, along with Peace Corps and Experience Corps, as great options for aging go-getters, but notes that more will be needed.

He may have a point. There are a lot of Boomers out there, and these programs are only so elastic. Perhaps we need to start working on ways to make use of this incredible and probably unique population surge of restless energy. Wouldn’t it be great if one of the legacies of the Boomer generation was the creation of even more powerful ways to serve others.

If you’re a premium or lifetime member over at the Americorps Alums site, Lenovo (makers of IBM ThinkPad notebooks) is offering you a 15% discount off web pricing until Dec 15. Also, you can receive an additional 10% off specified ThinkPad notebooks. If you’re a premium member, check your messages at the Americorps Alums site for details. If you don’t see anything there, click over to the discount center for the full spiel.

Note: You have to have signed up as a member on the Working Advantage site to qualify for this discount. Working Advantage is a free discount site you receive a membership to as part of your Alums membership. I just signed up in the process of writing this post and checking out the details of the Lenovo offer, and it was painless. Your “employee” number to enter in the registration box is right there on your Americorps Alums discount center page in the Working Advantage box. Just copy that and head over to the site, click Register, then Employees, then you fill out your contact info, check off any newsletters you want and “hey, presto!” you’re in. Easy peasy.

• Campus Progress does a good job of outlining the benefits of National Service for college graduates in its article, Don’t Sell Your Soul.
• The Buffalo News highlights the Enterprise School, a charter school that provides intensive education, support and opportunities for inner-city youth with the help of Americorps members and other volunteers.
• A page from the Americorps site shows you how to put your Americorps service to work for you.

“Many colleges and universities require health insurance,” Jeanne Hebert, director of the University’s Office of Insurance and Risk, told The Herald in an e-mail. “If students are faced with unexpected medical expenses, they may not be able to continue their enrollment in college.”

After graduation, students no longer have access to SHIP, and most are barred from their parents’ policies when they turn 22 or cease to be full-time students. Some, like Rastelli, apply for jobs with firms that provide insurance. Others enter graduate programs, many of which have policies similar to Brown’s. But those who don’t receive insurance, and have no mandate to purchase it, face a difficult choice.

As the article notes in its last paragraph, Americorps offers a comprehensive health care plan, although it doesn’t include coverage for preexisting conditions. It’s not always the best insurance in the world – our coverage was so skimpy when I was serving my first year that we called it the ginseng and band-aid plan – but it’s better than nothing. I do know of at least one Americorps member in my group who was staying on a second year partly because of the health plan (and child care subsidies) that Americorps offers.

This is a real challenge for 20-somethings. Although health care plans can be cheap for healthy graduates, those with preexisting conditions or disabilities can face premiums that far outstrip the weight load of their fresh-out-of-grad-school earnings.

Alas, Americorps isn’t much help in these cases, but for the otherwise healthy college grad, it’s an option that can give you a year or two of breathing room while you suss out your options, decide what you’re going to do and build up your resume/experience, which will hopefully improve your chances of landing a benefits-loaded job or one that pays well enough to afford your own plan.