WHEREAS since 1994, the AmeriCorps national service program has proven to be a highly effective way to engage Americans of all ages and backgrounds in meeting a wide range of community needs and promote the ethic of service and volunteering; and

WHEREAS each year AmeriCorps, including AmeriCorps VISTA and AmeriCorps NCCC, provides opportunities for 75,000 citizens across the nation, including approximately 1,624 in Arizona, to give back in an intensive way to our communities, our state, and our country; and

WHEREAS AmeriCorps was designed to give a key role to states in deciding where resources should be directed to meet state and local needs through the work of Governor-appointed state service commissions, including the Arizona Governor’s Commission on Service and Volunteerism; and

WHEREAS AmeriCorps has strengthened America’s independent sector by investing more than $5 billion dollars to support the efforts of tens of thousands of nonprofit, community, educational, and faith-based community groups nationwide; and those grants have leveraged hundreds of millions of additional funds and in-kind donations from others sources; and

WHEREAS AmeriCorps members last year recruited and supervised more than 1.7 million community volunteers, demonstrating AmeriCorps value as a powerful catalyst and force multiplier; and

WHEREAS since 1994, more than 540,000 men and women across the nation, including 8,428 from Arizona, have taken the AmeriCorps pledge to “get things done for America” by becoming AmeriCorps members; and

WHEREAS those AmeriCorps members have served a total of more than 705 million hours nationwide, including 8,591,297 hours served by resident from Arizona, helping to improve the lives of our state’s most vulnerable citizens, strengthen our educational system; protect our environment, and contribute to our public safety, and;

WHEREAS AmeriCorps members nationwide, in return for their service, have earned more than $1.4 billion in Segal AmeriCorps Education Awards to use to further their own educational advancement at colleges and universities—including more than $18,929,520 that has been awarded to residents of Arizona; and

WHEREAS AmeriCorps members, after their terms of service end, remain engaged in our communities as volunteers, teachers, public servants, and nonprofit leaders in disproportionately high levels; and

WHEREAS, AmeriCorps Week (May 11-18, 2008) is an opportune time for the people of Arizona to salute AmeriCorps members and alums for their powerful impact; thank all of AmeriCorps' community partners in Arizona who make the program possible; and bring more Americans into service;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that I, Janet Napolitano, Governor of the state of Arizona, do hereby recognize May 11-18, 2008 as

ARIZONA AMERICORPS WEEK

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused to be affixed the Great Seal of the State of Arizona

GOVERNOR

DONE at the Capitol in Phoenix on this twenty-third day of April in the year Two Thousand and Eight and of the Independence of the United States of America the Two Hundred and Thirty Two.

ATTEST:

Secretary of State

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