You have to “think big” when you spend a year of your life in service to others. Spend a few minutes talking to a fellow service alumnus, and you’ll hear the idealism and big thinking.  I hear it from so many SCA alumni, and I recognize it in myself when I tell stories of my own service experience.  Whether we were building trails or interning in a national park, running an after-school program with City Year, building world-wide community in the Peace Corps, doing disaster relief work with NCCC, or working in low-income areas with Teach for America, we are all united in the drive to be part of something larger than ourselves.  (more…)

Wow. Want to know what it’s like in the press room of a Presidential Candidates’ Forum? Here’s a handy timeline! Apologies for length, but tonight was an amazing symposium of service, and I feel it is my duty as your official ServiceNation correspondent to report as much as I can! So read on, and watch all the rest of the Forum here . . .
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Hi again! I’m having a great time in NYC. Want to hear about my day so far?

In a preview of the thousands of service projects that will take place nationwide on September 27th, I was on-hand at the Yung Wing School in Chinatown with dozens of other civic-minded helpful people! While I spent my morning painting some new works of art to adorn Public School 124’s walls, other folks were assembling new school desks, cleaning and re-shelving the library, and reading with the children. The event, hosted by MyGoodDeed, was a really tremendous opportunity for locals and visitors alike to rehabilitate the school and spend time with its students!

For me, it’s always good to be back in a school; as an SCA Conservation Corps member in Massachusetts, I got to spend 3 unforgettable months working at an Elementary school in Shelburne Falls, teaching children the importance of conservation and ethics for keeping our planet healthy. It was the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had, and I was so glad to see so many people come out and help today.

Our day began with encouraging words from David Paine, President and Co-founder of MyGoodDeed: “It’s a very unique gift for us all to take the time out of our days and give this service,” he told the assembled volunteers.

And it was unique! PS 124 largely serves the immigrant and Chinese-American youth in Manhattan’s Chinatown, and as Americans who have benefited all our lives from the legacy of immigrants in this country, it was a tremendous opportunity for us to work with our newest Americans, knowing that our service would help ensure their education to be the best it can be.

Serving today of all days was also an important means of remembering and honoring the victims of September 11th, 2001. Jay Winuk, Vice President and Co-founder of MyGoodDeed, urged us to recognize the importance of our service not just to the school, but to the city. “We have to use service as a way to move forward from 9/11,” he said, “And we will make sure that people remember this day not for the attacks, but for the outpouring of support and service that has followed.”

A.J. Hammer, host of CNN’s Showbiz Tonight and a native New Yorker, was also on hand to work with the students. “It’s important to keep volunteering,” he said. “…On this day of service, and after.”

MyGoodDeed has been creating opportunities for service on each anniversary of the September 11 attacks since 2002. Created by family members and friends of the victims of 9/11, MyGoodDeed logs hundreds of thousands of projects throughout the US each year, and has been a major voice in the urging for September 11th’s designation as a national day of service.

I’m headed uptown to Columbia University — stay tuned for my report from ServiceNation’s Presidential Forum on National Service!

Hellllllllo from New York!

Daniel Parr here, SCA alumnus extraordinaire and your on-the-scene correspondent for Service Nation!

Tomorrow is the first of the two big summit days here in Manhattan, and there’s no time to waste! MyGoodDeed.org has put together a terrific service project at a public elementary school in Chinatown, and volunteers will be helping revitalize the school’s library, paint a few murals, and read books with the students! I’m looking forward to being a part of it, and telling you all about it afterwards

(Times Square! Just like on TV!)

After that, I’ll be headed up to Columbia University to hear the 2008 Presidential Candidates John McCain and Barack Obama speak about the importance of volunteer service in the 21st century. This is a nationally-televised event, so check your local listings. Submit a question for the candidates here, and you might get an answer on live TV!

Now I don’t want to get all preachy on you, but before you hear it from the Candidates tomorrow, I can assure you that service - of any kind - is absolutely vital to our communities and our country. That’s why the SCA has been providing opportunities for young people to serve for over 50 years! Whether by building bridges in the backcountry or lending a hand in our cities, our volunteers are making a real, positive impact on our world.

…But there’s always more to be done. So whether you volunteer for a day with ServiceNation on the 27th, or intern for a year with the SCA, your effort is going to shape you and the world around you. Like Dr. King said: “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.”

I’m excited to be here in this absolutely tremendous city for this great event, and I hope you’ll keep checking back – I’ll keep writing!

(Central Park! Proof that not all self-portraits are bad.)

Until next time…

“Conserving our air, our water and our natural resources is a national priority, and young people want to help. I will make sure our national leaders understand that and consider what is needed to support them,”  SCA President Dale Penny said about his participation in the Service Nation Summit on Thursday and Friday which includes Presidential Candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. 

Have questions for the candidates? Post them below in the comments and we’ll give them to Dale.

Service Nation is a coalition formed to persuade the next President and Congress to pursue policy that will engage Americans in service to their communities and nation.  In addition to the Summit, the Service Nation coalition is organizing a massive day of national service on September 27th.

SCA invites everyone and especially its alumni force of over 50,000 to lead a service project on the Day of Service on September 27.  Please visit our Take a Pledge page and register your event so that we may include you in our list of service activists.  You can find SCA sponsored events here. And please, tell us what you did on September 27th.  We’ll post your photos and stories here.

Degrees of latitude I cannot measure but I picked up at least 40 degrees of Fahrenheit between Gateway Nat’l Rec Area and Padre Island Nat’l Seashore. PAIS, in the shorthand of the National Park Service, is one of two SCA Alternative Spring Break sites sponsored by American Eagle this year. Grand Canyon is the other.

Twenty-five college students from around the country are building an ADA-compliant boardwalk on this Texas barrier island; next week another 25 will put an addition on a sea turtle research building some 40 miles downshore. (more…)

Nate Tyler wants to invite you to “the dark side.”

Tyler, an SCA alum and one-time Google spokesperson, is taking on global warming with Lights Out San Francisco, a grassroots campaign to get locals to turn off their lights between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 20. Landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the TransAmerica Tower have all agreed to pull the plug.

Will Lights Out suddenly halt melting glaciers and put Al Gore out of business? Of course not. But the energy savings and reduced emissions, however minor, will be real and the message sent by those darkened SF icons should be heard loud and clear.

In fact, Los Angeles is already listening. The city plans to turn the lights off the fabled Hollywood sign, and the response from around the US has already prompted Tyler to schedule Lights Out America for March 29, 2008.

It’s always good to see SCA alums still fighting the good fight. Nate, a Connecticut native, says his mid-80s SCA hitch at Lassen Volcanic National Park in California opened his eyes to just how large the country is. If his Lights Out campaign catches on and helps thwart rising oceans that would otherwise consume at-risk coastal regions, our nation might just remain as big as he remembers it.

I did the evening drive to Voyageurs at, shall we say, warp speed. In fact, as I navigated northward the lightning bugs glancing off my windshield could have been phaser blasts deflecting off my force field. If, you know, such things were real.

The following morning I rendezvoused in International Falls with Craig Halla of Forest Capital Partners, an investment firm dedicated to sustainable forestry and sponsor of SCA’s Voyageurs crew. An affable, high energy guy, Craig closed the office for the day and led his staff on a field trip to meet up with the SCA crew. But first they loaded two coolers with sandwiches, drinks and ice cream and then we all hopped a park boat for a 20 minute ride on Kabetogama Lake to Cruiser Trail. From there, the FCP team hauled the cumbersome coolers over a half mile in stifling heat, over rugged terrain, and through insatiable insects. Suffice it to say they broke out the cold pop as soon as the introductions were over.

The effervescent crew eagerly shared details of their innovative bear-proofing strategies at base camp (think “open air fruit market,” 10 feet up), a recent visit to a bird of prey handler (estimates on the size of the eaglet they saw ranged from eight inches to three feet), and an excursion to town where they gleefully devoured every no-redeeming-value snack they could find (”Whoopie Pies, Cheetos, Gummie Bears…”).

With lunch out of the way, the crew and Forest Capital team set to building a series of trail cairns. Once the high school kids realized their visitors were willing to hunt and haul rocks for them, they — the crew — quickly settled into the enviable role of supervisor. Soon the job was done, everyone posed for a group photo and then, not afraid to show their simian side, the group sat down picked ticks off one another.

Too bad they couldn’t have just zapped the buggers with phasers.

A conventional timeline suggests that time moves relentlessly forward. A pocketwatch shows that time moves in perpetual circles. All I can say is that time…moves…me.

The local volunteers who hit Wonderland Trail during my Rainier visit ranged in age from 20 to 50. Many different people at many different points in their lives but all made the, yes, time to advance the Mount Rainier Recovery effort. More than one individual vowed to return in 10, 20 or 30 years to inspect and reflect on their work. With memory, experience, and imagination we can be in the past, present or future.

In my previous post I mentioned the 500 year old volcanic ash the crew uncovered. It gave most of us pause. Yet later, during a Meadow Rover training session with another group of volunteers, my group hiked past a Volkswagon-sized rock left by a lahar thousands of years ago. And of course Rainier’s glaciers date back to the Ice Age. The history looming before us seemed taller than the mountain itself.

I understand none of this is classifies as “this just in.” But at least for me it was a reminder of how easy it is to take time — its passage, predictability, and potency — for granted.

For example, after Rainier, I flew to Minnesota to hook up with an SCA crew at Voyageurs National Park. I just assumed my luggage would arrive at the airport at the same moment I did. Not this time…