GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. - This week, AmeriCorps Week 2008, the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (www.crwrc.org) received approval of a nearly $1 million grant from AmeriCorps. The $960,000 three-year award, a 27 percent increase over a previous award, will fund 19 full-time and 14 half-time AmeriCorps member positions based in ten states - from California to New Jersey - from October, 2008 to September, 2011.

The new grant will expand and CRWRC's strengthen community-building projects among marginal and impoverished neighborhoods across the United States. CRWRC's first three-year grant of $650,000 has resulted in growing success among both AmeriCorps volunteers and the neighborhoods in which they work across America.

"I love working together with my neighbors to make change happen in our community," says AmeriCorps volunteer, Rosa Gomez. "It feels good knowing we are making this neighborhood better for our children and ourselves." Gomez has returned for a second year of service with CRWRC and AmeriCorps in Fullerton, CA.

CRWRC's partnership with AmeriCorps involves dozens of college-age and other adults like Gomez who are committed to volunteering their time to public service: At the end of this first grant period with CRWRC, AmeriCorps volunteers stirred nearly twice as many community members to action as was anticipated at the outset of the program -- Nearly 750 people are now engaged in the betterment of their own neighborhoods through the volunteer's work.

"AmeriCorps volunteers have been fantastic catalysts for civic participation in the neighborhoods where they're serving," says CRWRC Team Leader and AmeriCorps grant supervisor Jay Van Groningen. "It's exciting to observe community members who are considered 'disadvantaged' taking action to realize their own dreams in their communities."

CRWRC is one of more than 4,000 faith-based and community organizations partnering with AmeriCorps to place trained volunteers in low-income neighborhoods where as many as 60% of the residents live below the national poverty line.

"A generation can go by in poor neighborhoods in which nothing changes," says Van Groningen. "People don't participate in their community when they feel isolated and fearful."

The award will extend the development of a project model engaging more than 25 youth organizers in Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), a poverty reduction strategy created by CRWRC that emphasizes the importance of local decision-making, local resources, volunteerism, collective action and sustainable results.

"I'm out talking to people all the time," Gomez says. "The community mindset is changing from apathy to involvement. Younger people see the value of community and are convincing the older people that they can develop a community vision and work side-by-side. People are taking ownership by participating in neighborhood activities that unite us and make it known that we care."

AmeriCorps is celebrating AmeriCorps Week from May 11-17, the second annual week of celebration since the organization's inception in 1994, and the commitment of more than 750,000 members who have volunteered their time and energy to America's neighborhoods over the last 14 years.

For more information on CRWRC's AmeriCorps-funded programs, contact Jay Van Groningen at 616-786-2993. For more information about CRWRC's community development, relief, and justice programs, call U.S. Media Contact Beth DeGraff at 1-800-55-CRWRC or 616-648-7821.

For more information about CRWRC, visit www.crwrc.org or call 1-800-55-CRWRC. CRWRC is a Christian, non-profit organization of the Christian Reformed Church in North America providing a ministry of development, relief, and justice education to people in need around the world. CRWRC is active in more than 30 of the world's neediest countries and has an international reputation for "helping people help themselves."

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