It’s a busy Tuesday evening in February at Federal Hill House (FHH) in Providence, Rhode Island with several clients waiting to have their taxes prepared. Clients have come to trust and rely on the free tax preparation service offered by the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program (VITA). The VITA program offers free tax help to people who make $54,000 or less, persons with disabilities, and limited English speaking taxpayers who need assistance in preparing their own tax returns. IRS-certified volunteers provide free income tax return preparation with electronic filing to qualified individuals.

Senior Corps RSVP volunteers are a critical part of the program and assist clients by greeting them, preparing and reviewing their tax returns, helping them fill out and understand their tax forms, explaining the tax credits for which they may or may not qualify, and making referrals to programs in the community. The Senior Corps RSVP volunteers are recruited by Federal Hill House to serve throughout Providence.

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By Mei Cobb, Director of Volunteer & Employee Engagement,
United Way Worldwide

Giving back to others isn’t just good for the community—it’s good for your health, too. In fact, volunteering at any age improves your physical and mental health exponentially. Not only do volunteers have lower mortality rates and less depression, but when you volunteer later in life, it contributes to living longer and can even decrease the risk of dementia. By volunteering just two hours a week, older adults can reduce early level disability.

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“Foster Grandparent”
by Senior Corps volunteer Juanita Davis

Each day when I awake
I know the road I’m taking
To fulfill my needs and others
And the difference I am making.
I rush off to see the children
And start an interesting day.
I’ll listen with my heart and mind
To all they have to say.
They show appreciation
With a hug and so much more.
This fills my life with happiness
What else could I ask for?
I know I make a difference
And it makes my life worthwhile
To be a Foster Grandparent
To a very special child.

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By Jennifer Ingham, Senior Communications Manager, City Year

Every March, AmeriCorps Week is an opportunity for AmeriCorps programs to come together to celebrate the power of national service. Since 1994, over one million individuals have served 1.4 billion hours and earned a total of 3.6 billion in Segal Education Awards. AmeriCorps programs have leveraged $1 billion in private, philanthropic and other resources as well as mobilizing millions of additional community volunteers in the last year alone.

At City Year, March is not just when AmeriCorps Week happens—we extend the celebration of our AmeriCorps members to the entire month to recognize the 3,000 City Year AmeriCorps members serving this year as mentors and tutors in high-need schools in 28 cities.

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Edieson Aguirre has been eager to serve in AmeriCorps since before he was old enough to join. As an AmeriCorps tutor at the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Public School System, Edieson tutors students in kindergarten, first grade, and fourth grade.

For AmeriCorps Week, Edieson took time to tell us why he’s motivated to serve and how he makes a difference at William S. Reyes Elementary School.

Why did you decide to join AmeriCorps?

Throughout my high school experience, I felt that I had not yet done something to be proud of. When I learned about AmeriCorps in my junior year, I couldn’t wait to turn seventeen so I could serve as an AmeriCorps member.

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By David Panepinto, AmeriCorps Member
Alaska Legal Services Corporation

As an AmeriCorps attorney member for the past 9 months in Nome, Alaska, I’ve been lucky to serve my community through participation in a Medical-Legal Partnership, an entirely new model for providing legal services to low-income individuals by bringing services directly to them.  Instead of the traditional legal services model, in which state-funded attorneys are located in isolated office buildings out of both sight and mind, my office is located within the Norton Sound Health Corporation hospital. My clients are all referred directly by hospital staff, who are uniquely able to identify patients with civil legal needs that affect their health.  

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By Chester Spellman, Director of AmeriCorps

As we observe AmeriCorps Week 2018, we have the opportunity to remember the many different ways national service opens doors, expands opportunities, and strengthens communities across the nation.

For more than 20 years, this national service program has been a shining beacon, attracting those who looked within themselves and found a desire to give their time and energy to take on the challenges that our nation faces. And our members represent a cross-section of America, as young people from small towns to big cities and everywhere in between have taken the pledge to “get things done” for America.

What exactly does it mean to “get things done”?

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In July 2006, Olivia Padilla and her family of four moved into a Habitat for Humanity house in Aurora, Colorado. Prior to moving in, they were living in a small apartment surrounded by an unsafe community in Metro Denver. It was a big deal for Olivia and her family to finally have a home.

“I was only 9 at the time, but I remember one of my happiest moments was learning that we were going to have our own backyard. My siblings and I would finally get bikes to ride around the neighborhood without feeling unsafe,“ says Olivia.

Olivia now serves in AmeriCorps NCCC, a national service program for young adults, ages 18 to 24 years old. Members are placed on teams of eight to 12 and serve on various projects throughout a specified region of the country for months at a time. AmeriCorps NCCC teams address community priorities like conservation, urban and rural development, and disaster response.

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Adonnis Martinez, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, spent his childhood at the foot of the Black Hills in Rapid City, South Dakota. Raised by his grandparents and great- grandparents, he was told: “You either go to school or you work. There is no in-between or alternative.”  The emphasis on education has been in his family for generations. His great-grandmother and grandmother both attended college at the request of their family. Martinez says that without his family’s support, he wouldn’t be where he is today.

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Building confidence. Improving lives. Strengthening communities. These are all intangible benefits often attributed to volunteering. At the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), we engage millions of Americans in national service through AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and the Volunteer Generation Fund. Our Office of Research & Evaluation (ORE) channels our passion for volunteering with a commitment to gathering evidence. By combining those two fields, we have developed the State of the Evidence Report which shares meaningful insights that not only reinforce those intangible benefits of volunteering, but reveal concrete benefits as well.

Everyone has their reason for serving in a CNCS program, and while it is often an expression of compassion and support for others, volunteers also benefit from service. Volunteers in general are 27 percent more likely to find a job after being out of work, and that number jumps to 51 percent for volunteers without a high school diploma. Looking specifically at AmeriCorps, a Tufts University resume-based experiment study found that 24 percent of resumes listing AmeriCorps service experience received a call back for an interview, compared to 17 percent of resumes without a service record; a statistically significant difference.  

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After working to reap the rewards of retirement, our nation’s seniors are targets for those who would prey on the vulnerabilities that often come with aging. To combat this problem, Senior Corps is partnering with the Department of Justice to support the Elder Justice Initiative to prevent elder abuse.

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Last year, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) awarded 2017 AmeriCorps State and National Evidence-based Planning Grants to seven worthy organizations. The goal? To help these organizations develop their own national service programs with a focus on evidence and evaluation.

Evidence-based programming underscores the mission of CNCS’s Office of Research & Evaluation (ORE). We see program development as an iterative process, using evaluation and research as indicators for improving programs, impacting more lives, and building stronger communities. To that end, ORE helps further the school of evaluation by providing organizations with the resources and tools to incorporate evaluation into their own efforts.

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By Debbie Basile, Project Director - Lutheran Foster Grandparent Program

It was Sunday morning and I began the usual routine: I stretched in bed; arms flung outward; groaned a bit; leisurely ambled my way to the bathroom. I scowled at myself in the mirror and completed the tasks at hand. I got dressed and went off to church.

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AmeriCorps VISTA has 3,000 opportunities nationwide for you to go where your skills, talents, and experience are needed - in communities, fighting poverty. You may not have thought to search in Wyoming, but here are 10 good reasons to consider serving in the Cowboy State:

1. Go find your park! We have an abundance of public lands. Between 2 National Parks, 12 State Parks, 5 National Forests, & 1 National Monument, there are millions of acres to explore.  Photo credit: NPS.gov.

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‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land,
AmeriCorps members were driving, in a basic white van.
But their stockings weren’t hung; no, not with care.
They’re on a new mission, going to who knows where.

They had to be tired, many nodded their heads,
But when duty calls, everyone misses their beds,
This assignment was special, it came in a snap,
“Santa needs help; grab your boots, grab your cap!”

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