Commongood Careers

Service Nation Daily Update: Serve America Act

Today, for the second day in a row, the United States Senate continued consideration of the Serve America Act. Several Senators spoke in support of the Act on the floor of the Senate including Democratic Senators Akaka, Cardin, Carper, Kaufman, Mikulski, Nelson and Udall and Republican Senators Hatch, Isaacson and Johanns.Thanks in large part to the ongoing cultivation by the Points of Light Institute and others, Republican Senator Johnny Isaacson of Georgia signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.

Here a few amazing highlights resulting from the national mobilization around this legislation:

• The New York Times published an editorial in favor of the Serve America Act, as did the Appleton Post-Crescent in Wisconsin.
• Shirley Sagawa published a great piece on the Center for American Progress Blog called “A Chance to Make America Better”
• ServiceNation funder Laurie M. Tisch wrote an op-ed for the Philanthropy News Digest
• ServiceNation Youth Chair, Usher, sent out a text message to all of his followers asking them to call their Senators in support of Serve America.
• A number of organizations today sent out email updates and/or calls to action to their entire email list including Youth Service America, Rock the Vote, I have a Dream Foundation, YouthBuild and Democrats Work. Do Something highlighted the call to action on their homepage.
• Habitat for Humanity made phone calls in 7 states; David Battey of YVCA rallied his network in Kansas to make phone calls; and AmeriCorps Alums mobilized in Georgia, Texas, and Tennessee.
• The National Council on Aging released a statement of support of the Serve America Act.
• The AARP has decided to make the Serve America Act an accountability vote this means they will publicly post how each member votes on their government watch site and let their members know where their Senator sided. They will be faxing every Senate office letting them know that they will be publishing the results on their website. Senator Mikulski has also agreed to guest-blog about the Serve America Act on the AARP blog