Whenever we do a Service Event i like to hear from young people who have served. I would like to thank my friend bill, and i had the privilege of helping. It was not me. It was a group of people, i did it with my best friend and college roommate, and others. It was a small group of thoughtful and dedicated people. Ite it work was not michael, was when people experience this love the idea. I am incredibly honored to be here. It is like a Family Member a Family Reunion with Service Members and giants. Thanks the bridge and president george w. Bush, i got the largest increase in americorps ever, 50 . Amazing. Bill, who went into the white house and made it happen. Susan who has been carrying this torch forever, domestically and internationally, helping spread this idea. Steve, who was here. Built the Service Movement for young people, service learning, changing the world and showing that you can be 9, 10, eight, and 12 years old and change the world. I want to thank brookings and bill. Belle. Of has put the issue poverty, opportunity, and the middleclass on the National Agenda and it is amazing how she keeps coming up with new ideas to advance the cause, but she is action oriented, and i am glad we have been able to embrace the Service Woman and the Service Alliance together. I would like to thank jesse, who is fabulous. When i called him about taking the job he said, i believe it is time for a new generation to take the lead, and honestly i cannot wait. And also patrick, a dear friend. There is no one who gets this more from his own personal experience and speak so eloquently. My chairman,oe joe. I am so honored and we are so fortunate. He has done an amazing job leading us. I think we have come together showing it does not matter if you are a republican or democrat, or in the military or civilian service. We can find Common Ground on this issue and you have done some amazing leadership. And barbara who is doing a fabulous job leading the corporation. You have put one in the sales for whole movement and we are blessed to have your leadership. Just a couple of thoughts. I love what everybody has talked about, i am with the folks who have said that we have to take this to scale, it is urgent. I honestly believe that there is no idea more important to helping us fulfill our fundamental mission of a country, just to form a more perfect union, and to have liberty and justice for all. I am remindedt, of two of my great mentors who , who alwaysharris emphasized the for all, from his days in the World War Ii Army air corps to literally his last breath was advocating and fighting for and saying that we have to have universal National Service. Unbelievable hero. The founder of americorps, without whom president clinton had the vision, and bill was there in the white house, that it was eli who understood politics and new how to get things done. You think about how washington is today, that americorps legislation got passed within ninemonths, a big bipartisan vote. Thanks to eli, and harris, senator kennedy and etc. , 1. 1 millions people 1. 1 Million People have served in america. In americorps. We know this works. It is not rocket science. As you will hear from these young people we have to take it to scale. From my own experience i can tell you, National Service changes your life. Wife at aonderful conference for certain for Service Leaders and social entrepreneurs. If you are looking for love, join the service you Service Movement. It works. Essence, what the Service Movement is about as abrupt spreading love in the world. I love what peter said, it was like a benediction. He said that National Service touches peoples souls. If we could get to one Million People a year, it will touch and change americas soul. And we need that. There is nothing more powerful than love. Everybody canaid, serve, and also said darkness cannot snap stamp out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot stamp out hate, only love can do that. And that is what the movement is about. I want to turn it over to these arelous, young leaders, who every day showing us what the served Service Movement is about. I will briefly tell you who they are and then give you a couple of minutes to share your story. We have william, and americorps he is a National Hero and icon. Hansen. Andrew we have a team leader with fema corps. American inan americorps worker from d. C. We have andrew hansen, the environmental steward of the delaware state parks, and we have taylor stone, in americorps vista member and a humanitarian dutch habitat for humanity. Why do we not start right here . William my name is william, i am from elk in West Virginia and i completed a term with northcentral and with the education alliance. Now, after completing my term, i have continued to be involved. I am the head of the Mentor Program and i said is the seuss the sous chef where we train members to do that as well. Hello. I am a field team leader. I have served for about six months in puerto rico, helping to support fast recovery efforts. We are serving with the office of external affairs in d. C. It has been an amazing opportunity. I am sure i will have time to talk about that. It has changed my life. One of the first things i read about the program before i learned about any details, a team leader said it was the hardest but most rewarding year of their lives. Now that my service term is up next month i can completely agree. I am grateful. Quickly, i am say honored to be here, so i want to thank samantha for reaching out to allowing me this opportunity to speak. Also, to barbara stewart, the president of the cncs, and very direct and im very grateful to be here. Some of thels and most intellectual people ive heard speak in a long time. It was a great fun. This is why im rambling. I am very grateful. Thank you. Good morning. Maryland, iendale leaderly serve as a team , this is my second year serving. Atear i served in bancroft Elementary School, a bilingual Elementary School. We focus on making sure that all of our students are bilingual in spanish, i served in third grade mathematics, in english and spanish. I am not very fluent, but the students are teaching me as well. I am a student to them. This at my college university. I went to delaware state university, and at a career fair at first i was not interested, because i was looking for internships. I came, last summer across an Instagram Post and it spread my interest once again. Itove the mission, and really aligned with my generalpurpose. Reasontimately it is the why i am here today. Very grateful to be here, and thank you. Good morning, or afternoon. My name is andrew and i am original from philadelphia or just outside of philadelphia. So, go birds. I am a u. S. Army veteran, i served 4. 5 years. A few years ago i moved to delaware, kind of just happened. I did not have a plan. I was looking to transition into Natural Resources but i do not have a college degree, and to be a field biologist that is what you need. I started doing a lot of volunteering and heard about the delaware state parks veterans conservation corps. Did i get all that . Thank you. She usually throws m ms at me if i get it right. I served two terms with the core. Before ultimately being hired by delaware state parks as and this does not fit on a business card, but seasonable seasonal Environmental Stewardship team leader. In this somewhat in the summer there is an additional parks for the coastal internship program. I just tell people i am a bottle a biological aid because the state pays for business cards by the letter. Here to aski am each and every one of you and anyone who sees this a question. Barbara has heard me ask this question before, but the question is this, if you have the ability to affect positive change, do you have the moral obligation to do so . Thank you. Hello everyone. As anurrently serving americorps vista with habitat for humanity international. I also served a Previous Term with a habitat for humanity affiliate in denver, colorado. They are, i was working as a construction crew leader. So, leading volunteers and building homes. Now i am doing Something Back in the office. I helped to create learning resources so that we can spread andabitat organizations help educate and mobilize the careers and the general public. So, a little bit about me. I got into habitat and a college and that was also my First Experience with a mailer americorps, and i did a quarter time program in college called jumpstart. For those of you not familiar, it is an Early Literacy program where a team of members goes into preschools and helps them develop their Early Literacy skills. That was my first exposure to americorps, and then, when i started to develop a passion for housing affordability. Through our habitat campus chapter, i decided to blend those two experiences with dopstart, and i decided to my year of americorps with habitat after college. Got a lot out of it and loved it so i decided to come back for a second year. Alan can i borrow years . Thank you. True Service Warrior there. Andrew, i love what you said. If you have the opportunity to affect change, do you have a moral obligation to do so. Military,erved in the civilian service, you have done it all. Senator mccain said that military and National Civilian service are two sides of the same time. Is saying thestal same thing. What was similar about your service in the military and your americorps service, and what was different. What did you learn from each, and why was it valuable for you to do both . Andrew i will take a moment here. Task and purpose, everyone operating for the same cause. My program was a little bit different because it was made up of veterans, so everybody had known the mission and been on the mission. The teamworkely aspect, working together with a common task and purpose towards a goal, something in mind to do. We have that sense of accomplishment. It was different because working with dependents were also in our program. It was not necessarily that drive in them already, that sense of duty to accomplish the mission, and there was the mentor ship factor, how can we bring them into the group so they understand where we are coming from. Alan terrific. Thank you. Kayla, i am million with the program you serve in. Can you share some of the most important things you have gained personally from your experience . Kayla some of the things that i ofsonally gained was a sense commitment, completing a service year takes a lot. From the long hours, to commuting to your Service Place every day, as well as personal challenges that you may face. It really took a lot of me, but i knew that i was showing up every day for my students, so i had to really, even on the days that i might not have wanted to get up because we have to get up what, but i knew that motivated me the most was to show up every day for my students because they need someone who will be there for them. I would say also, a sense of independence. I am from maryland, but you really have to drive everywhere. Coming into d. C. Every day and learning how to ride the metro, get around to various places in washington, d. C. , as well. I would say that being in an Elementary School setting, you have to learn to control your emotions because the students are very young, and they do not ownys have a sense of their emotional awareness, so i really learned a lot about that on this year. This year, and last year, my First Service year. Sometimes we want to just react, but in the Elementary School you cannot react because you have to take anyour actions account on your students. The last thing that i learned englishng empathy for language learners, like i previously said my school is about a bilingual Elementary School, so a lot of the students there are not from the United States of america. They are from all over the world, honestly. It is hard when you are learning two different languages,. We have one student from finland. He does not really know english, and he does not really know spanish. It is hard for him to necessarily grasp all of the concepts. Even with our latino and hispanic students as well, getting a grasp on english so they can learn as well as becoming on grade level as well. These are all of the things i have gained in service. Alan thank you. Prospects in ab Rural Community like elkins is different from urban areas. How did your experience help you in your career decisions, and what should policymakers and people know about how to be effective and what National Service can do in Rural Communities . William before i joined, i was working as a chef, that there was a reluctance to move me up or promote me based on my lack of schooling. Youth build obviously helped my get my High School Equivalency and achieve leadership skills. That is the case for a lot of people in West Virginia because we have a very high student to teacher ratio, 50 students to one teacher, so we have a lot of people struggling in classrooms, and unfortunately, a high dropout rate. When i got to youth build, i was taught, everybody is taught that when they do something bad you are labeled as a failure. When you feel something it can leave you broken. When i got to youth build, i learned that it is ok to break sometimes, because if you never break you never learn to put yourself back together. I prepared myself with their help, and it gave me my confidence back. That was something i needed to negotiate a pay raise and it helped me a lot with my next term, because i had gone back into the school that i feel that i was going to mentor the youth and face those same people. I tried not to keep that in mind. I kept my focus on the youth and wanted to do the things to them that i never had as a student myself. With that in mind, i had Great Success in the program and a made great bonds with the kids. At the end of the year i had a 90 turnaround rate. To be able to do a good job, and to contribute to them for that happening is amazing. For me to be able to sit here and talk to you guys, if you would have pulled me off of the dish tank and told me that i would be sitting in front a lot of people of d. C. I wouldve asked if that warranted me a break for the night. When i went into youth build, i learned a new thought process, because when you get out of school and into Something Like t youyourself and its almose we call them sheep nowadays you think reluctantly and moving on. In the words of alexander the great, im not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep. Im afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion. Today, i stand before you a the kids i work with, being a lion. That is the most important thing you can do for yourself. [applause] william, thank you for sharing that very powerful story. Had the privilege of meeting with a lot of young that is a very powerful story, but i also know , veryan incredible impactful program. We need to get you in front of more people in washington, d. C. , down the street. Taylor, i love that you did jumpstart. I did not know that. I mentioned a consortium service, you can start learning in school. You decided to do in your second year, habitat. How do you know you have had an impact and what is the what is the difference between your first year in habitat, where you were doing more direct service work, and this year, where you are trying to help the organization as a whole . Taylor the impact this year looks drastically different. On the worksite i was able to lead volunteers in the building of two duplexes during my year there, so that is an additional for families we were able to surf through my service, which is awesome and a more tangible impact that i can see. What i am doing now is a little behind the scenes, but i still know i am making an impact. How i draw a connection between my two years of service, when i was on the build site last year, a lot of times what would happen, volunteers would come out and it would be their first time volunteering with habitat for humanity, and they would love it. I am a Firm Believer that it is through volunteer service that we can change minds and hearts, and i saw that firsthand on the worksite. You have these people who do not know about habitat or who do not the importance of home the importance of home affordability, and their voluntary experience gets them to care. I think that is the first step. That also happen with me in college in habitat, my own volunteer experience is what got me to care about these important issues. So now you have a volunteer who cares and they want to do something more, and that is where i see my role fitting in this year. Helped create, like i said, those resources for habitat organizations across the country , to help educate their ottoman volunteers ande their audience more on the issues of affordability. The resources i am helping to create now are going directly back to those habitat organizations that i worked with in the past. The same volunteers. They are giving them more of an educated view on the issue and helping them learn next steps. What can i do next . The issue,care about how can i influence my elected officials or whatever to also care . That is the reso