Cicilline Joins Serve Rhode Island to Announce $73,933 Grant Award from Corporation for National and Community Service

Press Release

U.S. Congressman David N. Cicilline (D-RI) joined Serve Rhode Island in announcing a grant of $73,933 through the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to help support volunteer activities in Rhode Island.

"Serve Rhode Island is our state's largest volunteer organization, and I am proud to join them in announcing this new federal grant funding that will support their ongoing efforts," said Cicilline. "I look forward to continuing to work with Serve Rhode Island and other stakeholders to bring federal funds back home and put them to use for Rhode Island families."

The grant announced today is provided as part of CNCS' Volunteer Generation Fund which is designed to focus upon the need to recruit, manage, and retain more volunteers to address pressing social challenges. With these dollars, Serve Rhode Island will enlist 1,800 new volunteers who will perform 9,000 hours of service tracked in the HandsOn Connect database system, provide targeted placements for youth, unemployed workers and seniors in leadership nonprofits, recruit and place 12 high-level professional volunteers and another 25 high-skilled volunteers to assist AmeriCorps subgrantees and partner with 15 larger volunteer dependent nonprofits to create volunteer recruitment and management plans.

"We would like to create a community service support and certification system for youth seeking to complete required service hours, as well as provide training for young people and students interested in creating and managing their community service projects on our HandsOn Connect database," explained Bernie Beaudreau, Executive Director of Serve Rhode Island.

Rhode Island was one of 17 states to receive a Volunteer Generation Fund grant. Totaling approximately $4 million in federal funding, these investments help strengthen volunteer recruitment and retention, expand the nation's volunteer pool, and create a sustainable infrastructure of volunteer connector organizations to increase the impact of volunteers in solving local problems.

Volunteers provide enormous social and economic benefit to our communities and the nation. According to Volunteering and Civic Life in America report released in December 2012, the number of Rhode Island Volunteers grew over the past five years by 11,404 to a total of 213,126 in 2011. The total hours volunteers contribute annually in Rhode Island is 21.4 million, having a labor value of $533.6 million.

The Corporation for National and Community Service is a federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Social Innovation Fund, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, and leads the President's national call to service initiative, United We Serve. For more information, visit NationalService.gov.

Serve Rhode Island is the state's center for volunteerism and national service and coordinates community service projects for volunteer individuals and groups to improve nonprofit and school facilities and the state's natural environment.

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