Service a tradition worth preserving
On April 4, before a crowd of 500 at the Albuquerque Convention Center, Mayor Richard J. Berry celebrated Mayor, County and Tribal Recognition Day for National Service by paying tribute to New Mexico’s 4,500 National Service members who every day, consistent with the AmeriCorps motto, “get things done” across our state.
As vice chair of the New Mexico Commission for Community Volunteerism, which oversees AmeriCorps — the largest national stream of service — funds statewide, I’ve been fortunate to witness the good AmeriCorps programs and members, mostly millennials like me, bring to our state.
Our commission awards grants to agencies to mobilize AmeriCorps members to tutor and mentor children, support veterans and military families, provide health services, restore the environment and increase economic opportunity. In exchange for their service, these AmeriCorps members receive a very modest living stipend and earn an education award that can be used to pay for college or to pay back student loans. Since the inception of AmeriCorps in 1994, more than one million AmeriCorps members, including 10,000 New Mexico residents, have served more than 10 million hours.
If you agree with the pundits, we as a nation are politically more divided today than at any time in recent memory. Yet what has historically been a subject of agreement for most Americans has been the benefit of national service. According to a new poll, 87 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats and 84 percent of independents overwhelmingly support funding for AmeriCorps and other national service programs.
... For every dollar invested in AmeriCorps, there are returns to society of $3.95 in terms of higher earnings, increased output and other community-wide benefits. And as a program of the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, our commission is especially gratified to know AmeriCorps members earn critical employment skills to better prepare themselves for an increasingly competitive workforce. While on the commission, I’ve witnessed AmeriCorps members with Ruidoso’s EcoServants program forge 55 miles of mountain trails throughout Lincoln County and help bring more than $3.5 million into their community through eco-tourism.
“It’s really satisfying to walk down something you built,” AmeriCorps alum Iris Burneice reflects. “I love seeing footprints on the trail.”
I’ve also seen AmeriCorps members with Families & Youth Inc. in Las Cruces provide after-school support and safe summer recreation programs for disadvantaged children. Last year alone, FYI AmeriCorps members improved math and literacy skills for nearly 200 children, dramatically increasing their academic engagement.
AmeriCorps members benefit just as much from their service as the populations they serve. “I want to be a teacher and this is the best way to practice,” says FYI AmeriCorps member Sarah Walther. ...
But while national service may appear bright in New Mexico, there’s a growing storm that risks blotting it out completely. In the most recent budget proposal, the Trump administration seeks to eliminate AmeriCorps’s parent agency, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). Comprising only three one-hundredths of one percent of the budget, CNCS helps states like ours unite citizens in a way that transcends differences, addresses critical needs, and instills a sense of community and purpose.
While these proposed cuts have cast anxiety over national service members and supporters, as New Mexicans, we have the obligation to share with our congressional delegation and our president the indisputable truth that national service is a low-cost investment in our citizens — not bureaucracies — to solve problems, including key priorities outlined in President Trump’s budget blueprint, such as violent crime and the epidemic of opioid abuse.
For our youth, elderly and the Land of Enchantment, we must now protect national service because giving back through service, helping others less fortunate help themselves and solving challenges together at the community level truly makes America great.