National Day of Service: Monday Feb 19

Not to be lost in the excitement of the Feb 20 swearing-in of Barack Obama as President of the the United States is the day before... Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which very appropriately has had the designation of National Day of Service attached to it.

Below is a clip of future first-lady Michelle Obama discussing the idea of Service on Monday and volunteer opportunities can be found at the at the website http://www.usaservice.org/ and either it's event search page or other service opportunities page.



For an in-depth look at the idea of National Service, there's was a great 2007 Special Report from Time Magazine on the topic.




There's multiple articles as part of the cover story and all can be found under the Time heading "A Time to Serve". Especially compelling, though, is the introductory piece by Time Editor Richard Stengel.

Time Magazine Sept 22: National Service

Interesting cover story on National Service in the Sept 22 issue of Time Magazine.



It beings with an overview from Managing Editor Richard Stengel (who references the cover story from a year ago also on National Service). From there, the issue contains "21 Ways to Serve America"... some of the ones more personally interesting noted below along with the corresponding # in Time:

#1: Support the "Serve America Act": Bill being introduced in the Senate this month.

#4: Give Up One Day: Service events being planned for Sept 27 and Jan 19 (MLK Day). Details at http://www.events.servicenation.org/ & http://www.mlkday.gov/.

#8: Get Out!: Civilian Conservation Corps is an organization helps clean and protect parks and other natural resources.

#9: Work with the Secretary: California is the first state to have a Cabinet (CA) level position around Service & Volunteering (from this came the California website http://www.californiavolunteers.org/.) Done at a Federal level this type of position would be in the President's Cabinet.

#15: Do It Pro Bono: Service opportunities utilizing Professional skills can be found through the Taproot Foundation or http://www.abillionandchange.org/.

#21: Log On: Another place to seek out volunteer opportunities is through http://www.volunteer.gov/.