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Dear National Service Colleagues:
Earlier today, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, Chair of the House Subcommittee on Healthy Families and Communities, introduced a comprehensive reauthorization bill for the Corporation for National and Community Service and its programs.
The bill – the Generations Invigorating Volunteering and Education (GIVE) Act -- will be marked up tomorrow morning in the full House Education and Labor Committee.
This bill is a strong step forward toward a reauthorization package that positions national service to better serve America’s communities. Many of the proposals in it are consistent with the Administration’s principles on reauthorization released last month. Those principles are 1) to mobilize citizen volunteers to meet the most pressing challenges of our communities; 2) to make federal funds more responsive to state and local needs; 3) to provide flexibility to leverage federal resources, make federal support more accountable and cost-effective, and increase the effectiveness of the Corporation and its programs; and 4) to meet the immediate and long-term needs of communities facing a large scale disaster.
The time is ripe for reauthorization. We’ve seen extraordinary success in recent years in many parts of this country’s service agenda, due to growing bipartisan support for our national service programs, led by a President who has consistently called Americans to service and supported the national service programs. The Corporation and its programs could do even more if we are able to operate more efficiently and be more responsive to local needs. The bill identifies several opportunities to make this happen, and we look forward to working with Congress on reauthorization as the legislative process moves ahead.
The bill language is not yet available online. We expect it will be posted on the http://www.thomas.gov website in the next few days, and will let you know as soon as it’s available. We expect that the bill language will change as a result of amendments at tomorrow’s markup. As details emerge, we will share them with you. For more information on the Administration’s reauthorization principles, visit http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/role_impact/history.asp.
In Service,
David Eisner
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