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(Washington, D.C.)— The Corporation for National and Community Service is sponsoring three new initiatives to enhance citizenship education and preserve important stories about American history, national service chief Leslie Lenkowsky announced today.
The new projects are part of a nationwide series of programs focusing on civics and history, announced by President George W. Bush in a Rose Garden ceremony today, the 215th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. (View President's remarks.)
"As the federal agency that administers national and community service programs, the Corporation has always had a special responsibility to increase civic responsibility among all Americans," Corporation CEO Lenkowsky said. "In the wake of September 11, there is no better time to focus on what it means to be an American citizen and what all of us ought to know about our history and government."
He added, "Through our three main programs-Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America-we offer Americans of all ages opportunities to serve their communities and their country, while also acquiring the knowledge and habits of being a good citizen. These new initiatives will increase the contribution our service programs make to fostering civic responsibility, while preserving an integral part of American history."
The three projects are:
• A partnership between Senior Corps and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress to promote and extend the Veterans History Project. Senior volunteers will help identify and locate veterans and those involved in significant home front activities, conduct interviews, collect documents, create veterans history archives in local communities, and help preserve and present veterans' stories to students and the public as a whole. Senior Corps volunteers will be working with veterans of World War I, World War II, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf Wars. More than 500,000 Americans 55 and older serve with Senior Corps.
• AmeriCorps members will participate in an expanded civics training program that will focus on the responsibilities of American citizenship as seen in classic works of American history. As part of the program, each AmeriCorps member will receive a selection of basic documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address, which set out the nation's democratic principles, and will reflect on and discuss the principles that define us as a country and the role service to our communities and our nation plays in achieving them. Each year, 50,000 AmeriCorps members participate in service to their neighbors and our nation.
• In its upcoming round of grants through Learn and Serve America, the Corporation will focus on service and service-learning programs that seek to improve the teaching of civics and American history. As a first step, the Corporation, in conjunction with the Department of Education and the Points of Light Foundation, released "Students in Service to America," a guidebook for teachers that emphasizes ways of connecting service and citizenship. AmeriCorps and Senior Corps members will assist schools and community groups in the civics instruction. Learn and Serve America engages more than 1 million students, from the elementary through college level, and community groups, in service activities that are connected to academic coursework.
Created in 1993, the Corporation for National and Community Service engages more than 1.5 million Americans annually in community service through three programs: AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Learn and Serve America. For more information, visit www.nationalservice.gov.
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