Nicole Trinh, our education and outreach intern phenom, spent part of the week at the 80 Million Strong Conference. At the conference, the creation of a Public Service Academy was deemed the number-one public-service project in terms of importance for young people.At the conference, which several Academy supporters attended, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar endorsed the Academy! Here’s what Nicole had to say:
It’s been a great week for Outreach at the Academy this week! I was lucky enough to join 75+ young Americans at the 80 Million Strong Summit on Capitol Hill. Now what exactly is the 80MS Summit? Take some of the most passionate individuals from all over the country, put them in a room for 12 hours, and then let them go at solving our nation’s biggest problems. What’s the outcome of that?—a unified list of incredible policy recommendations to present to Congress. Take note: these recommendations addressed everything from healthcare, education, climate, to national security. There was hardly any ground that wasn’t covered.
Now the highlight of the Summit was when each attendee prioritized each policy recommendation on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most important). Believe it or not, out of the hundreds of proposed policies, establishing a U.S. Public Service Academy came out at the very top—the only recommendation to receive a 9-rating! That’s right. At least 75 millennial generation leaders believed that establishing a Public Service Academy would be the best way to solve our national crises. I could not agree more.
And when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar endorsed our effort at the Summit. During the Q&A portion I asked him point blank if he would support the Academy effort. Without hesitation, he said “yes” and reinforced our belief that now is the time to get more young people involved in government, now is the time to strengthen our public sector, now is the time to build the U.S. Public Service Academy. Onward!
