Today the Serve America Act will be introduced in the Senate.  The goal of the legislation is to encourage approximately 175,000 more Americans to spend a year doing national service — targeting young people, social entrepreneurs, and Americans at all stages of their lives.

Some reasons to support this bill:

• When students do service early in their lives, they are more likely to continue doing service over their entire lives and working to improve their communities
• Many Americans, including retirees and recently graduated college students, are looking for opportunities to serve their country
• The legislation has broad bipartisan support, including Senators Kennedy, Hatch, McCain, and Schumer
• The legislation will help apply effective business strategies to the non-profit sector by establishing venture capital funds (called “Community Solution Funds”)

You can read a summary of the Serve America Act here: http://kennedy.senate.gov/newsroom/press_release.cfm?id=0BA0C2ED-0061-4B4E-B291-9A8E262C82CB

To call your Senator and ask them to support the Serve America Act, go to  http://www.bethechangeaction.org/servicenation/take_action/callcongress

To read the entire act, see http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s3487is.txt.pdf