National service programs. This is one hour. This has been a fabulous day i agree we have saved the best for last theres no question whenever i do a Service Event i say we have to hear from young people who are serving or have served because they understand what its all about because they are at the ground level. So im excited about this panel and i want to thank my friend for his overthetop, and. I did have the privilege of helping, but that wasnt the. It was a group of people, my best friend and College RoommateMichael Brown and others. It is a small group of thoughtful dedicated people and it wasnt me or my goal for this is that people when they experience this idea and i am honored to be here. It is like a reunion for me with Service Legend is gimp my brother i worked closely for 20 years who still thinks to president george w. Bush to the largest increase ever. Bill visited but then he went into the white house and made it happen. Susan has been carrying the torch domestically and internationally helping to spread this idea all over the world. Steve, who was here, who has built the service for young people, service learning, showing you can be nine, ten, 12yearsold and a change the world. So many people here have built this movement. Its amazing. I want to thank val and bookings. Poverty, opportunity, the middleclass, more on the national agenda, and its amazing how she keeps coming up with new ideas to expand the cause that is action oriented and im so glad that we have been able to embrace the service with bookings and minds together. We have come together in such a great way whether republican heard democrats and you have proof provided leadership knows a corporation for National Service knows were sales for the whole movement and we are blessed to have your leadership so just a couple of thoughts we have to take this to scale it is urgent a blue theres no idea thats more important to help us fulfill the fundamental mission as a country to form a more Perfect Union and have liberty and justice for all and National Service. I am reminded two of my great winters on mentors on whose shoulders we stand and from the world war ii literally until his last breath was advocating for to say we have to have universal National Service. And unbelievable hero and the founder of americorps without whom president clinton had the vision but eli was an entrepreneur who understood politics and how to get things done think about washington today americorps legislation was passed within nine months and the program was launched within a year thanks to eli and harris another champions like senator hatch 1 Million People have served in america in the past 25 years 250,000 served in the peace corps. Its not rocket science. As you hear we have to take it to scale for my own personal experience i met my wonderful wife at a conference for social leaders and social entrepreneur entrepreneurs. [laughter] and i say that because at its essence that spreading more love in the world to say National Service touches peoples souls. It will touch and change america souls. As doctor king said but also said darkness cannot stand up to this. The men to stamp out hate only love. Thats what the movement is about. With these fabulous Young Leaders but share your story why you shared started and what you got out of it. Get amusement on a hero and icon usa Educational Alliance in the Field Team Leader with a member from cd mc and Andrew Hansen the team leader for the delaware state parks and americorps project Development Habitat for humanity. Lets start right here. I completed and americorps term with the alliance. Now after completing my term i continue to be involved i am met on and head of the Mentor Program i also sit in as a sous chef and we train others to do that as well. As a Field Team Leader i serve for about six months in puerto rico it has been an amazing opportunity and that change my life one of the first things ever read about the program that a team leader said is the hardest and most rewarding year of his life and now that mine is almost up i can completely agree. I just want to say very quickly im extremely honored to be here and also to reaching out to the campus thank you very much we are very grateful to be here some of those intellectual people i have heard speak im excited thats why i am rambling. [laughter] thank you. Hello im from maryland serving as a team leader last year i served at the Elementary School and we focus on all students are bilingual in spanish and with third grade mathematics im not very fluent but the students are teaching me as well. At my College University and a career fair at first i was not interested however last summer we came across the instagram pros one Instagram Post i love the mission it with that purpose thats the reason i am here today im grateful to be here. Thank you. Good morning or afternoon. I am Andrew Hansen just played a philadelphia. U. S. Army veteran i served four and a half years a few years ago i moved to delaware i didnt really have a plan in mind i do not have a College Degree and as a biologist that something that you need some i was in delaware i started to do volunteering with the amir on awardwinning Americorps Program so i served two terms it was close enough to it to her at that point and then to be hired by the delaware state parks seasonal Environmental Stewardship team leader misses for the Parks Program so i just tell people i am a biological aid for the state of delaware because they print business cards by the letter and i dont get those. Ultimately im here to ask each and every one who gets to see this a question. Barbara has heard me ask this before, but if you have the ability to affect positive change, do you have the moral obligation to do so . Hello my name is taylor i am currently serving with habitat for humanity international. I also served a Previous Term with a habitat for humanity affiliate in Denver Colorado there i was working as a construction crew leader coordinating volunteers and building homes now im back in the office and i hope to create learning resources that we can spread to habitat organizations throughout the nation to help educate and mobilize our volunteers and the general public. A little bit about me, i got into habitat in college that was my First Experience with americorps. Actually did a quarter time program in college call jumpstart. Its an Early Literacy program where a team of members go into preschools to help them develop theirs gills and that was my first exposure that then i started to develop for Housing Affordability in college through that chapter of habitat. I decided to blend those two experiences and decided to do a year of americorps with habitat after college i got a lot out of it and loved it so much im now coming back for a second year. A true service warrior. [laughter] andrew, if you have the ability to affect change of the moral obligation to do so . Military civilian service or none at all that senator mccain said National Civilian service is two sides of the same coin general mcchrystal says exactly the same thing. What is similar about your service in the military and what was different . Why was it valuable for you to do both . With task and purpose operating together for the same cause. My particular program was a little different because it was made up of independence everybody knew the mission so that goal and sense of accomplishment. Working with dependence also in that program there wasnt necessarily that drive or sense of duty to accomplish also a mentor ship factor how do we bring them into our group so they understand where we are coming from . Terrific. Kayla im a little bit familiar with the program that you served in. [laughter] what is one of the most important things personally from your experience personally what i gained was a sense of commitment. Completing a service year takes a lot. From the long hours to commuting to your service site every day and as well as personal challenges you may face but i was showing up every day for my students. So even on the days i may not have wanted to because they had to get up early but what motivated me was to show up every day to be someone that could be there for them. I am from maryland but i have to drive everywhere than to come in every day to ride the metro and how to get around in washington dc. Being in the Elementary School setting you have to learn how to control your own emotions because the students are young and are not aware of their own emotional awareness i learned a lot about that this year and last year during my service year because sometimes we want to just react you can do that in an Elementary School because you have to see how your actions on students. And then with the those englishlanguage learners those that are from all over the world but its hard when you are learning to different languages we have one from finland he doesnt know english and he doesnt know spanish so its hard for him to grasp all the concepts even with those latino students as well with the english to be on grade level with spanish as well. Thank you. Thats great. The names and job prospects is very different from urban areas how does your experience help you in your career decisions . And what should policymakers know about how to be effective of National Service could do in Rural Communities . Be mecca started working as a chef they wanted to move me up or increase pay based on lack of schooling and with the High School Equivalence to achieve those leadership skills thats the case for a lot of people in West Virginia because we have a very high student to teacher ratio. We have a lot of people struggling in classrooms with a high dropout rate. But i was taught anytime somebody does something bad in school they are labeled as a failure so i learned its okay to break sometimes because then you never learn to put yourself back together if you dont. So i prepared myself and that really gave me my confidence back and that was something i needed to get at that next level because i had gone back to the school that i had failed at to be a mentor and face the same people but my focus was on the youth and to do the things for them that i didnt have as a student myself. So with that in mind i had Great Success in that program and at the end of the year i had 90 percent turnaround rate in their criteria so to contribute americorps for that happening is amazing and for me to sit here and talk to you i would never have thought if you would have told me id be sitting in front of a lot of people in dc i would act as if that warranted me a break for the night. [laughter] but here i am. So i did learn a new thought process when you get out of school you have a certain way to think about yourself. Now we call them a sheep but in the words of alexander the great you cannot fight an army of lions led by a sheep. But today i stand before you a lie and i tell my kids be a lie and thats the most important thing you can do for yourself. [applause] thank you for sharing that story i have known dorothy and i have had the privilege with a lot of young people and that is a very powerful story to come incredibly Impactful Program thank you for sharing that. Taylor i love that you did jumpstart i did not know that. Talk about doing schooling from your college how do you know youve had an impact in what is the difference between the first habitat which was direct or this year we are helping the organization as a whole. The impact was drastically different. On the worksite i could lead volunteers in the building of two duplexes during my year there that is an additional four families i could serve through my service which is awesome that is a more tangible impact. What im doing now i am a little more behind the scenes but i still feel im making an impact in how i draw a connection between my years of service is when i was on the build site last year a lot of times the volunteers would come out and they would love it when i said i was with habitat for humanity. I am a believer that through volunteer service we can change minds and hearts and i saw that on the worksite. People who dont know about habitat or the importance of Home Affordability and then this experience gets them to care and thats the first step that happened in college with me with habitat. With my own volunteer experience got me to care about these issues. So now you have a volunteer who cares and they want to do something more. Thats right see my role this year. I hope to use those resources for organizations across the country to help educate habitat volunteers and their audiences more on the issue of affordability so these resources i am creating now will go directly to those habitat organizations i worked within the past. So now how can i influence my elected officials to also care those are resources i am also helping to provide to those i spent the last year serving with. So to very different years of service one is a little more concrete but they both connect to bring the issues. Thank you thats a great story. In your second year youre almost finishing up your second year, first year. Excuse me. You are telling me before why you decided to join and how do you know youve had an impact and what you thinking about because you finish in november quick. So i grew up in tennessee which isnt exactly a friendly place there are not a lot of options for a lot of people. I remember every tuesday and thursday we had military recruiters. I am not against the military at all its extremely honorable thing to do but its not for me personally. So ive always wanted to do something that allows me to give back. Because i do love the us. Of course were not perfect but this country has given so much opportunity and freedom and the democracy that is here i wanted to do something that allows me to give back to serve our country but being in the military that i have to still do that to have an impact on people and not think about myself or once. So now fastforward after college i truly had no idea what i wanted to do i was lost. I went into it but that made it difficult finding a job so i spoke alan this morning with my story of how my family was affected with Hurricane Katrina and fema helped out my family quite a bit going from the homeless to being put up in homes so now im getting a little choked up but so now i want to give back. When i heard about americorps specifically i thought this gives me an opportunity to serve people that also to give back to the exact thing that provided my family with help in a time that they needed it and im extremely grateful for that. So after my term of service i was still not sure. I knew what i did not want to do i would really like to work for fema that is a dream. I served in ohio and oklahoma and colorado. In working for fema is a little bit different so and im in an office which is a big change but to impact the world in some way that and we were in puerto rico and we went to the more mountainous regions and we went out to inspect bridges and a few different rivers that traveled along and it was heartbreaking and heartwarming because talk during the hurricanes how people could not get food and water born in those regions because there was no way for them to get to the people because it was heartwarming to know that i was there trying to do what i could to help get inspections done on a much larger scale. So this is what National Service is supposed to be about to build a more Sustainable Future for everyone with things like peace corps are very focused but my mom always says how can you take care of someone else if you cant take care of yourself . Thats a big thing with Community Service is we have the same problems as other countries so we should definitely focus our efforts to make sure the countries are doing well and then we are much better prepared to handle other countries issue issues. But afterwards i really would like to work for fema. I love it i Love Computers i would like the opportunity to do that. I want to do something that allows me and i cant say that enough but also what they taught us during training they repeat the mantra constantly over and over that its not about you. That was something that was drilled into my head because not about that is to benefit other people. So now talking about there is military recruiters everywhere and they have the nation on the option to do what you did on your own and they would be lucky to get you and as a taxpayer im would be happy to have your service. The Previous Panel talked about a reauthorization for americorps but yet we dont get the funding for i love what you said you did it because if your kids. Getting up at five in the morning. So i will start with you so we are in the nations capital. Just down the street people who are very powerful about our resources. We wish they were all in this room right now. If you had a chance to talk to the policymakers if we should invest more money or not what would you say to try to convince them it is worth it quick. I believe all people of a generation even younger than me should be invested in