While Youth Service America will be celebrating an incredible milestone of 20 years in service to the world in 2006, our most popular program, National & Global Youth Service Day, is celebrating a milestone of its own - 17 years. Year after year, National & Global Youth Service Day, the largest service weekend in the world, touches the hearts and minds of people and galvanizes new generations of youth to simultaneously address the needs of their communities through service-learning and community service. Youth Service America and businesses, parents, grandparents, educators, organizations, public officials, and mentors successfully communicate the positive action of service and service-learning to youth each year.
Youth Service America is building a global culture of engaged youth who are committed to a lifetime of service, learning, leadership, and achievement.
Volume 4 Number 3 Fall 2006
In this Issue
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PHOTO CAPTION: 220 youths participated in Iraq's inaugural Global Youth Service Day 2006 activities organized and implemented by the Iraqi Democratic Coalition for Youth Empowerment and made possible by a Disney Minnie Grant. The activities of GYSD highlighted the effectiveness of youth volunteerism and inspire further youth participation. |
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Dear Friends & Colleagues: While Youth Service America will be celebrating an incredible milestone of 20 years in service to the world in 2006, our most popular program, National & Global Youth Service Day, is celebrating a milestone of its own - 17 years. Year after year, National & Global Youth Service Day, the largest service weekend in the world, touches the hearts and minds of people and galvanizes new generations of youth to simultaneously address the needs of their communities through service-learning and community service. Youth Service America and businesses, parents, grandparents, educators, organizations, public officials, and mentors successfully communicate the positive action of service and service-learning to youth each year. And, every young person that "gets the service rush" then communicates this important duty to new generations. As a result, Youth Service America has seen a steady rise in youth participation in N&GYSD for 17 years. Research continues to support service-learning programs as an effective method to increase student academic achievement in addition to community service. According to a leading researcher in service-learning, Shelly Billig from RMC Research Corporation, "Service-learning, when implemented with high quality, yields statistically significant impacts on academic achievement, civic engagement, acquisition of leadership skills, and personal/social development." With this rise in youth volunteering rates, Youth Service America has successfully coupled youth's energy and idealism to serve their communities with $267,000 in grants for service-learning projects. Service-learning works -- it improves academic performance, increases civic responsibility, and gets things done to help solve community problems. Through the support from State Farm Companies Foundation -- YSA's primary funder for 6 years -- service-learning enables youth to learn about global issues in the classroom, while hands-on experiences in the community reinforce that learning. All of us at Youth Service America look forward to all students reaping the rich rewards of service-learning. If you would like to support Youth Service America this year through your work place giving campaign, we are now a participant in the Combined Federal Campaign as part of the America's Charities ChildrensFirst Federation. Our CFC number is 0676. Yours in service, Steven A. Culbertson |
YSA Partners & Sponsors |
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By The Numbers - A Snapshot Of Recent YSA Activities
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National & Global Youth Service Day 2006 = Youth Changed The World Again Millions of youth participated in National & Global Youth Service Day, the largest service event in the world, on April 21-23, 2006. They tutored young children, engaged in disaster relief projects, registered new voters, educated their communities about good nutrition, distributed HIV/AIDs prevention materials, and met many more community needs through their service. National & Global Youth Service Day supports youth on a life-long path of service and civic engagement, and educates the public, the media, and elected officials about the role of youth as community leaders. State Farm Companies Foundation is the Presenting Sponsor of N & GYSD. You can view the: |
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7th Annual Global Youth Service Day Mobilizes Millions of Young Volunteers In its seventh year, well over 2 million young volunteers helped to celebrate Global Youth Service Day in 118 countries around the world. Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) is an annual event held on a designated weekend every April which celebrates the year-round contributions young people make to their communities and world through voluntary service. GYSD helps to focus the world's attention on the valuable skills and ideas youth have for the welfare of their communities and the development of their societies. GYSD was launched in 2000, and has been celebrated to date in over 150 countries. GYSD is organized and managed by Youth Service America and the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN), together with a consortium of international organizations and over 100 national coordinating committees. More than 2,000,000 young volunteers were mobilized across 118 countries this year for National and Global Youth Service Day. This year close to 40 organizations joined the International Coordinating Committee, a very significant increase that reflects the momentum GYSD is gaining around the world. While there is no annual theme for GYSD, many countries decided to focus their service projects around Millennium Development Goals emphasizing the key role youth play in community and national development. Finally, another very interesting trend is the participation of younger children in certain regions. Thanks to the Disney Minnie Grants, volunteers under 14 years old have worked on community improvement projects and taken their first steps in a lifetime of civic engagement. Youth Service America is grateful for the generous support provided by General Motors, Disney, and the Inter-American Development Bank who contribute through funding or expertise to this initiative. We also wish to acknowledge the support of the United States Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which manages student exchange programs around the world and encourage the participation of youth in Global Youth Service Day. |
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YSA Grants Are Incentives For Engaging Target Populations, Encouraging Quality Practices, Or Addressing Important Societal Issues YSA provided 267 youth, teachers, and organizations with a total of $267,000 in grant funding to support N & GYSD projects and continued service. Ten U.S. National Partner organizations also gave grants for N & GYSD projects (equal to the 10 in 2005 and up from 5 in 2004), awarding an additional 494 grants totaling $223,200.
YSA is pleased that we are increasingly able to use grants as incentives for engaging target populations, encouraging quality practices, or addressing important societal issues. For example, Capital One Youth Service Fund grants help youth in low to moderate-income communities in the greater Washington, DC area plan and implement projects. The Disney Minnie Grant engages young children ages 5-14. The State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Grant promotes and gives visibility to quality service-learning projects. The Hurricane Recovery and Relief Grants provided important support to the Gulf Coast areas devastated by hurricanes and helped young people join in the effort to make a difference. All of these are models that we will replicate and expand in 2007 and beyond. Finally, all of our programs require applicants to engage media, elected officials, and youth not traditionally asked to serve (youth with disabilities, youth of color, young children, etc.). |
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Online Media Coverage Recruited New Generations Of Youth To National & Global Youth Service Day 2006 Youth Service America's strategic international media campaign for National & Global Youth Service Day 2006 garnered nearly 1.5 billion media impressions profiling service and service-learning projects domestically and internationally (up from 729 million impressions in 2005 and 329 million impressions in 2004). Coverage ranged from the biggest online outlets, newspapers, magazines, television, and radio stations in the country to community newspapers and mid-sized television stations, all with very vivid descriptions of the youth service and their service-learning projects and contributions. A total of 1,508 television, print, radio, and online news stories featured N & GYSD (up from 1,416 in 2005 and 856 in 2004). Collectively, these media outlets reached many of our key constituencies some of whom include: younger children (12 and under), students, nonprofit and faith-based organizations, teachers, parents, and young people not traditionally asked to serve. The above numbers were the result of YSA's aggressive international media relations, outreach, and grassroots campaign for National & Global Youth Service Day 2006. Our efforts consisted of targeted communications strategies that promoted youth service, our grant winners, funders, National Partners, Lead Agencies, YSA Youth Council members, the National Service-Learning Conference, Youth Service America's keynote speeches at conferences, and all international and national projects. These stories were creatively pitched to national and international media, weekly and daily newspapers across the 50 states, blogs, online outlets, magazines, websites, service field newsletters, education trade magazines, and all broadcast TV and radio outlets. |
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Participation By Public Officials In National & Global Youth Service Day 2006 A key element in YSA's strategy to increase the effectiveness, sustainability and scale of youth service is the engagement of government officials and public figures. As the largest service event in the world, National & Global Youth Service Day presents an important opportunity to garner the public support of government officials for the youth service and service-learning movement by developing relationships between officials and the youth leading service projects to address needs in their communities. In total, YSA tracked the participation of 643 government officials and public figures in N & GYSD 2006. Forms of participation included issuing city and state proclamations for N & GYSD, attending or speaking at service events, writing letters of support, making available public resources or venues for the events, and directly participating in youth service projects. Many elected officials participated in multiple ways (e.g. both issuing a proclamation and attending an event). YSA emphasizes the involvement of government officials in N & GYSD not merely for its own sake, but rather as part of a sustained effort to build political support for youth volunteer efforts, national service programs, and service-learning at the local, state, and federal levels. Just as most people volunteer for the first time because someone personally invites their participation, the most vocal and ardent champions of service have been created by personal outreach and firsthand experience of quality service projects. Participation by government officials also shows youth that their efforts are important and encourages further service involvement. Finally, government official participation is one key link in the chain connecting service and civic engagement-fostering opportunities for youth to be active citizens year-round. |
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National Partners Provide The Umbrella Structure For Their Chapters To Do N & GYSD Events Youth Service America was honored to work with 115 of the nation's largest service, education, and youth development organizations as National Partners. YSA targeted new strategic partners this year to reach specific audiences. For example, to reach more schools, we partnered with the National Association of Independent Schools and the National Council for the Social Studies. New partnerships with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans enabled us to reach out to minority youth and youth in underserved communities. Finally, partnerships with organizations with a strong international presence, such as Sister Cities International and HOPE worldwide, have helped us forge connections between youth volunteers in the U.S. and overseas. Increasingly, National Partners are taking ownership of N & GYSD as a tool to strengthen and energize existing programming. |
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Lead Agencies Span 50 States And Mobilize Youth On The Local Level This year's 51 Lead Agencies successfully increased the scale of National & Global Youth Service Day by engaging 815,986 (up from 143,522 volunteers in 2005). 95% of their volunteers were youth. Fourteen Lead Agencies conducted state-wide events in the following states: Alaska, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Additionally, Lead Agencies engaged volunteers in some of the nation's largest cities including: Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Phoenix, and Washington, DC. To see exactly what our Lead Agencies achieved for N&GYSD 2006, please go to: |
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YSA Working Group Focused On Court Mandated Community Service Affects Work Of Juvenile Justice System Steve Culbertson, YSA President & CEO, often tells the story of a group of fifth grade students from North Carolina that he engaged in conversation about community service. When he asked them if they volunteer they responded, "Oh, no sir, we never get in trouble." The experience triggered quite a discussion at Youth Service America and resulted in a lively Working Group around the subject of service as punishment. We brought in judges, youth development leaders, and the Department of Justice. The Working Group began a very strong relationship, funding and otherwise, between the Department of Justice and Youth Service America. A recent article by one of our national partners, The Constitutional Rights Foundation, cited that 2002 Working group as the impetus for a major shift on how the U.S. Department of Justice will encourage its programs to apply principles of service-learning to mandated community service for youth offenders to reduce recidivism. "Community service-learning" will use service-learning to deepen the benefits of mandated service to the youth offenders and the community, and form partnerships to encourage youth civic engagement. This initiative has the potential to positively impact the service experiences of millions of Americans. |
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