Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Yorktown High School Habitat Club



We are very excited to announce our first official Habitat for Humanity high school club!  A group of committed, lively students at Yorktown High School started a Habitat club in their school and meet each week to organize fundraisers and outreach activities.

March 31st through April 1st, the Yorktown HS Habitat club will be participating in Act! Speak! Build! Week, a week of student-initiated activities which aim to educate youth and their communities about poverty housing issues and Habitat for Humanity.

The Yorktown High School Habitat club has some very exciting and creative ideas for the week!  Stay tuned for pictures of their week of activities!

Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication, Yorktown!

If you are interested in starting a Habitat club in your school, contact Jessica Sweeney at jsweeney@habitatnova.org for more info!



 

Monday, March 11, 2013

Habitat and AmeriCorps


It's AmeriCorps Week!

You may be asking "What is AmeriCorps?" right now.  

Here are the basics:

 Since 1994, more than 800,000 Americans have given more than 1 billion hours of service through AmeriCorps.  Every year, more than 75,000 AmeriCorps members meet pressing community needs across the country – strengthening education, assisting veterans and military families, providing disaster services, fostering economic opportunity, expanding health services and preserving the environment. Serving at more 15,000 locations, AmeriCorps members recruited and managed more than four million volunteers last year, boosting the impact of the nonprofit and faith-based organizations they serve.

AmeriCorps members work in communities across the United States to:
*tutor and mentor disadvantaged youth
*fight illiteracy
*improve health services
*build affordable housing
*teach computer skills
*clean parks and streams
*manage or operate after-school programs
*build organizational capacity
&much more! 

But what does this have to do with Habitat for Humanity, you ask?

AmeriCorps members serve in a variety of roles within Habitat. Whether they are engaging communities, building homes, leading volunteers, raising resources or developing new programs, AmeriCorps members help Habitat affiliates operate more efficiently and effectively. Most importantly, members help us to serve more families.
 
Since becoming one of the first nonprofits to partner with AmeriCorps in 1994, Habitat has engaged over 7,000 members who have performed over 12 million hours of service and:
*served more than 15,000 families in the United States
*mobilized and engaged over 2.5 million volunteers
*raised tens of millions of dollars
 
Interested in learning how to get involved with AmeriCorps?  Check out the AmeriCorps website or the Habitat for Humanity website!
 

 

 "Service is a spark to rekindle the spirit of democracy in an age of uncertainty. When it is all said and done, it comes down to three simple questions: What is right? What is wrong? And what are we going to do about it?" 
~President Bill Clinton, swearing in the first class of AmeriCorps members