Grace

My Blog Posts

• Health Care Benefits: a common link between Starbucks and AmeriCorps
  07/19/2008 01:59:18 AM EST
  Coffee lovers will have noted that eighteen Starbucks shopsin the Chicago area are scheduled to close within the next eight months.  These eighteen are part of a larger 600 which are being shut-down nation-wide, resulting in the loss of around 12,000 jobs.  Chicago community directors have expressed concern over these closings, noting not only the loss of business for these poorer and often minority districts where the closings are being scheduled, but also the loss of valuable jobs.  Starbucks has a strong record of hiring young twenty- or thirty-somes, who are in between jobs or schooling, with steady employment, practical leadership skills and the opportunity of being promoted to management.   Most significantly, all employees – full-time AND part-time – are provided with great health care benefits.  This is huge at a time when most companies are eliminating health care programs as part of their employment packages, or at least, eliminating them for salaried retirees, as General Motors recently did.  The economy is in a slump, inflation worsens every day and most companies can simply not afford to stay in business when paying astronomical health care benefits for their employees.  However, Starbucks is not the only way struggling individuals can find employment in Chicago with comprehensive health care benefits.  
• National Service: a worthwhile expenditure in a slumped economy?
  07/12/2008 03:14:15 AM EST
  The current desire to expand national service might seem to be coming at a bad time in our country’s economic cycle: our economy is in a slump, the national deficit is deep in the red and the average taxpayer is already stretched to the limit.  Now that both presidential candidates support ServeNext’s pledge to expand national service, some may not see this as agreeable when they realize the full cost of such campaign promises to the taxpayer.  The National Taxpayers Union Foundation computed the total cost of all campaign promises made by the two candidates, with McCain’s costing an additional $68 billion per year and Obama’s an extra $344 billion per year.  Where is the federal government going to come up with this kind of money?  The state of Illinois is facing similar problems as the federal government, with one of the worst failing fiscal budgets in the country at this time.  
• To the Editor:
  07/03/2008 11:05:16 AM EST
  I recently moved up-state to Chicago for a summer internship, and during my time here, have enjoyed learning about the voluntary citizen service, or national service, opportunities available in the city.  National service is the new cause for individuals of my generation, evidenced by an ever-growing number of applicants to programs such as the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps or Teach for America.  In a Time magazine article last year dedicated to exploring the movement of national service, Richard Stengel wrote that in the year 2006 alone, more than 61 million Americans dedicated 8.1 billion hours to volunteerism.  Sadly, since 2003, the federal budget for national service has been continually cut.  In March of this year, the National Service Reauthorization Bill failed to pass in the House by one vote.  Why is this a problem and why should you care about preserving AmeriCorps programs?
• City Year Chicago Site Visit
  07/02/2008 06:40:18 PM EST
  Last week, Glenna and I visited the Chicago City Year’s office downtown.  We were welcomed by Jessica Herman, the Civic Engagement Manager, into a large office complex, equipped to provide for this year’s graduating class of eighty-seven corps members along with its extensive supporting staff.  After visiting other smaller AmeriCorps programs, Glenna and I were impressed by the size of CY and the space it occupies.  Jessica gave us the grand tour, showing us posters painted by the children CY serves, large Chicago maps high-lighting participating schools, and various conference rooms, each named after a national service hero of the past.  Later, Glenna and I sat down with Jessica and several other staff workers to hear more about the daily operations of CY as well as the personal stories which motivate the staff and the volunteers in their wok.  I found it interesting that all of them had started out as corps members where they had had their lives significantly impacted, causing them to choose service as a long-term career.
• Who is benefiting the most from national service?
  06/21/2008 01:42:32 AM EST
  Who indeed?  Most people would assume that it is the individuals and communities who are being served: the students being tutored, the children being mentored, the unemployed given job skills, the communities given new homes, the natural disaster areas given relief…  A recent study published in May of this year by the Corporation for National and Community Service cites the AmeriCorps members themselves as one of the largest beneficiaries of their own service investments.  The study, “Still Serving: Measuring the Eight-Year Impact of AmeriCorps on Alumni,” considers the lasting impact which a year of service had upon the 1999-2000 corps members years down the road.  Two tests groups, the national and state alumni as well as the National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) alumni were compared with a control group, made up of those who had expressed interest in joining AmeriCorps that year but ultimately chose not to.