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Looks like Obama and the gang have done good: Senate Moves To Triple Americorps

First draft of the Americorps book chapter outline

Okay, kiddies. I’m actually plunging into the writing process of the book (well, more like dipping my toe, actually) and have completed a first run at a chapter outline for the book.

[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

Michelle Obama and Americorps

In the US News article, “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Michelle Obama,” was this note:

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.

Bill Clinton remembers Eli J. Segal at Brandeis University speech

On December 4th, as part of the kick-off speech for the new Eli J. Segal Citizen Leadership Program lecture series at Brandeis, Bill Clinton reminisced about his friendship with the late Eli J. Segal, architect and original head of the Americorps program. The presentation included video footage of Segal speaking about his friendship with Clinton.

“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.

Keeping my hand in

The Americorps Alums chapter I belong to here in Asheville is sponsoring an essay contest for students in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. The winner will get a ticket to the swanky MLK Day breakfast, and some other prizes like a gift certificate and whatnot (those haven’t been finalized yet).

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 ).

Is Americorps about to go BOOM?

In this brief piece, the author talks about the increasing need for more programs like Americorps and Peace Corps to absorb the coming influx of Baby Boomers who are going to be suddenly finding themselves retired and looking around for something to do with their time that doesn’t make them feel like an old fart.

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.

Quick Americorps roundup

Just got back from a week’s vacation in the land of the unwired, so I’m going to catch up with a quick roundup of interesting Americorps news tidbits I’ve corralled from the web:

• 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.

Americorps as health insurance bridge

The Brown Daily Herald has a piece about a serious issue facing college graduates, namely the students’ loss of health insurance as they graduate and subsequently lose coverage under their school health insurance and, often, their parent’s insurance policies as well:

“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.

John Edwards signs pledge to expand national service

After a stop at a House Party in Dover, presidential hopeful John Edwards signed the Presidential Pledge to Expand National Service (pdf). Woohoo! (OTOH, John McCain declined to sign even while acknowledging that Americorps volunteers were “the best we ever had.” An action which makes obvious sense…wait, what?)

In short, the pledge promises to expand Americorps service positions by 100,000, to support policies that make it easier for folks to serve 4,000 hours (2 years) to national service, to promote service learning in schools, to support and expand the Peace Corps, and to increase service opportunities to seniors.

Read about this momentous event, and the tenacious work of ServeNext member Tate that it took to get it done, at the ServeNext blog, BlogNext.

Does Americorps promote military conscription, or undermine it?

In a comment to my Sept 22 post about the Eli Segal Fellowship announcement, Scott Kohlhass, who runs DraftResistance.org, writes:

I am worried that these programs could be used by selective service as “alternative service” during a draft.

Scott Kohlhaas

That is indeed a novel and intriguing idea, one that had not occurred to me. I considered responding in the comments section, but then realized that this is an interesting enough topic to deserve it’s own post.

For starters, let me note that I am unequivocally with Scott when it comes to the concept of conscription to military service and the current system of mandatory registration of men when they reach 18. In my opinion, it is morally reprehensible to conscript someone to go out and fight a war they neither believe in enough to sign up for and that may, indeed, be in direct opposition to their personal, moral and spiritual beliefs. This immorality grows even stronger in light of the fact that the folks who lobby for war (corporations like Haliburton, the rich who have massive holdings in oil, metals and technology, etc) rarely have to worry about getting their hands dirty (or their brains blown out) fighting it. I can only that God that, being female, to this point I haven’t had to face the prospect of refusing to register as, being committed to non-violence, I would be morally compelled to do.

Even the government itself acknowledges this to some degree through it’s Conscientious Objector status, although during past drafts such status was ridiculously and notoriously difficult to get and C.O.’s were often socially, if not criminally, persecuted for “lack of patriotism” and “cowardice.” Although to be honest, I think it takes far bigger balls to stick with your spiritual and moral beliefs against the common feeling than to just go along and agree to commit violence for political ends that you don’t even believe in just to avoid going against the flow.

However, I depart from Scott’s concern in that, in the event a draft was actually reinstated, I would much rather have an alternative like Americorps to serve in rather than face the choice of serving in the military or taking criminal action that would involve and potentially endanger my family.

Having served two years in Americorps serving those who need help the most I can say without reservation that, if a draft were reinstated with Americorps as an alternative service, the prospect of the sheer numbers of objectors that would put in a position of public service would be an unequivocal Good Thing.

If a draft was reinstated for the Iraq conflict, just imagine the number people who don’t support the war and who have no intention of getting their head blown off for some ideal they don’t believe in that would willingly flood into public service as a viable alternative. Such a social service tsunami could literally change the nature of our country in so many ways I can’t even begin to imagine the end result.

Also, consider this – the best way to prevent war is to prevent the circumstances that provoke it and one of the key circumstances that create wars is xenophobia – the fear of the other. Fear of other races, other religions, other socio-economic realities, etc, create an insular, nationalistic fervor that easily transfers to dehumanization and hatred of people in other countries who are doing foreign things for foreign reasons that xenophobes neither understand nor feel comfortable with. Stir in violence perpetrated by radical members of these other groups and war is not only probably, it becomes downright easy.

If nothing else, a year or two in Americorps exposes both the member and those the member serves to so many different peoples, cultures, mindsets, and other realities – and forces them to act and live within those realities – that the end result of a national draft that swelled Americorps to that degree would be a new generation of people who would be far less likely to be xenophobic as well as far more likely to understand the dynamics of poverty, oppression and cultural intolerance as the source of anger, violence and fear that underly the actions that lead to war.

Plus, by dint of the quantity of direct services performed and the betterment of those served, our country would become more educated, more economically balanced and less divided than it was before, which in turn would make its constituents less violent, less oppressed and less warlike to begin with. And since the poor are always hit hardest by a draft (and the blandishments of the recruiters’ offices) this rising tide of education, economic status and cross-cultural exposure would also take many of them out of harm’s way in terms of the circumstances that often lead them to be victimized by the military machine.

In short, having public service alternatives like Americorps would actually be subversive to a war-like nation’s militaristic intentions, and to my mind would be one of the best antidotes to future wars I can think of, both in terms of how we perceive others and in terms of internal social realities that the military feeds off of.

So, although I support Scott wholeheartedly in his effort to eradicate conscription and end even the possibility of the draft, I have to say that having Americorps as a possible alternative in the event of a draft seems like a feature, not a bug, one that I would support equally wholeheartedly.