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Floor Speech
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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, volunteerism and service have long defined the very heart of the American spirit.
It was Alexis de Tocqueville, in the middle of the 19th century, at really the dawn of the modern American Republic, who observed that it was the willingness to take initiative, to get engaged, to roll up your sleeves and get to work helping to build your community that distinguished the people of this new continent from the Old World. And I will say I have seen it myself.
I am here to celebrate the 30th anniversary of America's national service program, something called AmeriCorps. It was created in a bipartisan effort at the end of the George W. Bush administration and at the beginning of the Bill Clinton administration. There was a concerted bipartisan effort to recognize that models around the country that showed the impact on young Americans of spending a year of their lives in service to others were worth expanding and replicating.
This week, actually, happens to be AmeriCorps Week--March 10 to March 16--and we are celebrating 30 years of service.
I have just introduced a bipartisan and bicameral resolution with Senator Cassidy, Congresswoman Matsui, and Congressman Graves. And, as I mentioned, AmeriCorps has been bipartisan from the start, and I look forward to continuing its future in a bipartisan way.
I have long had a connection to AmeriCorps, going back to one of the first national direct AmeriCorps programs that I ran with the ``I Have a Dream'' Foundation in the mid-1990s. When I was working for ``I Have a Dream,'' we had 150 AmeriCorps members serving in 10 cities, doing afterschool programming and summer programming for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is one of many ways in which young Americans participating in AmeriCorps have contributed to their community, have developed their skills, and have earned money for college.
Years later, when I was a county executive, I launched the New Castle County Emergency Services Corps to help strengthen the volunteer fire service in my home community. There are dozens of volunteer fire companies in Delaware, and they have often served as the backbone not just of the first responder community but of every community.
I grew up in a very small town named Hockessin, and that siren going off in the middle of the night from our volunteer fire company was a reminder to me of the call that is at the very foundation of our Nation, to get up in the middle of the night, to jump in your truck, and to drive down to the fire hall and to take on the risk of serving and saving your neighbor.
Recruiting, training, and supporting AmeriCorps members through the ``I Have a Dream'' Program was one of the most rewarding opportunities in my life. I, actually, for many years, served on the commission that directs and oversees AmeriCorps in Delaware, and it was through that service that I met my wife.
Over 1 million Americans have served in AmeriCorps since 1994. Delaware, today, alone has more than 361 traditional AmeriCorps members and more than 900 AmeriCorps seniors, and they do a wide range of things: from tutoring children to responding to disasters, improving and rebuilding housing, helping veterans, and much more.
Let me briefly mention two currently serving members of AmeriCorps in Delaware:
Sharron, an adult literacy instructor who works with Literacy Delaware, teaches English to our newest Americans. She spoke of the joy an immigrant mother felt when the school administrator called to tell her about her son--and to communicate something positive about his progress in school--and she could understand everything for the first time, as she was coming to master English without an interpreter.
Shristi, an academic coach at TeenSHARP, a college access program for underrepresented high school students, spoke of how fulfilling it was to help young men and women in Delaware, just as she herself had benefited from similar mentoring and tutoring.
These two examples are a reminder of what more than 1 million AmeriCorps members over 30 years have experienced--that service brings America together. It helps us bridge our divides.
AmeriCorps has organized, for decades now, an annual 9/11 Day of Service that brings people of all backgrounds together to be reminded of what citizenship means in our Nation: service to others.
As we reflect on 30 years, I think it needs to be a call for all of us to engage in the work of service; to take up the challenge of reauthorizing, strengthening, and expanding AmeriCorps as a program; and to recognize that the best thing we can do for our Nation is to get committed to each other through national service.
Congratulations to all who have served in AmeriCorps over the last 30 years and to the millions more Americans whose future will be enlivened, brightened, and strengthened through the opportunity to serve.
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