Asheville City Schools VISTA volunteer Jillian Buckley with Adam, one of the 35 Asheville middle school students interviewed for the Listening To Our Teens project.  Photo Urban News

By Sarah Williams

Our local Americorps VISTA is hosted by the Asheville City Schools Foundation (ACSF). Leah Ferguson and Kate Pett are co-directors of the program. ACSF is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to the educational success of all Asheville City Schools students.

The Foundation works to engage and mobilize the community to support teachers, students, and their families. It is supported by individual and corporate donations, grants from philanthropic organizations, special events, product sales, and fee-for-service. “All of their programs are funded entirely by the community,” said Joanne O’Sullivan, Americorps Coordinator of Asheville Programs.

The national Americorps organization reflects and supports First Lady Michelle Obama’s emphasis on volunteering as her primary concern. Mrs. Obama has been speaking out to encourage all citizens to volunteer in their communities; presently, she is rallying around the issue of health care reform proposals being pushed by the her husband, President Barack Obama.

Mrs. Obama was the keynote speaker for the opening plenary session of the National Conference on Volunteering and Service. She discussed the United We Serve summer initiative, a nationwide initiative to bolster civic engagement to address critical needs. The United We Serve campaign began June 22, marked as a national day of service and remembrance, and will end September 11. The initiative focuses on key areas: education, health care access, energy and the environment, community renewal, and military families and veterans.
The White House has called on state governors to lead the eleven weeks of service and to participate in the program. Following President Obama’s kickoff of the campaign was a discussion of volunteerism at Heritage Park, NC.

Governor Beverly Perdue announced that her office and all departments and agencies of state government will participate in United We Serve. She has chosen to focus on mentoring and has appointed a leadership group to identify mentoring opportunities and to help drive the program out into various organizations at the state, local, nonprofit, and corporate levels.

 Ms. Kaye Gattis is Executive Director of the North Carolina Commission. With all of North Carolina’s national service programs working together with the Governor, she expects a huge impact can be made during the 81 days of service.

Organizations and agencies that are supporting the United We Serve campaign are encouraged to determine how their organizations can develop service activities in which local community members may participate. To make it easy for volunteers to find projects, they are asking organizations to post opportunities to the Web site .

United We Serve offers not only the opportunity to meet critical community needs, but also visibility for organizations as leaders in service. This is also a great opportunity for year-round volunteers to step into leadership positions in the community. The leaders of this initiative believe that as North Carolinans galvanize around these service opportunities, showing that the state is committed to improving the lives of all citizens.