Remember the GIVE Act I mentioned a while ago? Yesterday, Obama signed legislation that "will expand AmeriCorps positions to as many as 250,000 by 2017 from 75,000 today" (Yahoo!).
Alan Solomont, the chairman of the Corporation for National and Community Service, said that expanding the programs fit a demand as more Americans, especially young people, were seeking service jobs through AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps and short-term teaching programs.
"This upcoming generation has grown up in a country affected by 9-11, by (Hurricane) Katrina, by the current economic crisis," he said. "These are things that tend to bring people together. They are much more diverse than any generation before. They're more practical and less ideological." More online communication has boosted volunteer organizing efforts, too.
Solomont also recognizes an "Obama effect" of younger Americans being drawn to the president's call for service. From November, when Obama was elected, to March, AmeriCorps received 48,520 online applications, more than triple the number of online applications during the same period the year before.
. . . The "Obama effect?" And to think I could have been the 48,521 applicant. I still need a summer job, though. . . .
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