AmeriCorps

AmeriCorps is a U.S. federal government program partnering with non-profit organizations, public agencies, and faith-based organizations that was created in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. More than 70,000 individuals currently join AmeriCorps annually, totaling more than 500,000 members since 1994. The work done by these groups ranges from public education to environmental clean-up.

AmeriCorps is a division of the Corporation for National and Community Service, which also oversees the Senior Corps and Learn and Serve America. Collectively, these three programs represent a total of more than 2 million members in service each year. AmeriCorps itself is split into three main divisions, including AmeriCorps State and National, VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps).

AmeriCorps dates to the early 1990s. Research has illustrated that AmeriCorps programs have a variety of effects on civic education, education, and public service.

AmeriCorps programs

AmeriCorps National

According to the AmeriCorps website, AmeriCorps*National provides grants directly to national public and service programs, Indian tribes, and consortia formed across two or more states, including faith-based and community organizations, higher education institutions, and public agencies. Grants assist these groups in recruiting, training and placing AmeriCorps members to meet critical community needs in education, public safety, health, and the environment. Hundreds of organizations across the nation have been awarded AmeriCorps National grants since the program's inception.

AmeriCorps State

According to the AmeriCorps website, AmeriCorps*State works with Governor-appointed State Service Commissions to provide grants to public and nonprofit organizations that sponsor service programs around the country, including hundreds of faith-based and community organizations, higher education institutions, and public agencies. Grants assist these groups in recruiting, training and placing AmeriCorps members to meet critical community needs in education, public safety, health, and the environment. Thousands of organizations and institutions across the U.S. have been awarded AmeriCorps State grants since the program's inception. AmeriCorps*State operates through Service Commissions in each state, such as Volunteer Florida and the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service.

AmeriCorps NCCC

AmeriCorps*NCCC, or National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), is a full-time, team-based residential program for men and women age 18–24. Members serve at three campuses that serve three regions (Eastern, Midwestern and Western United states.) One is located on a closed military base in Sacramento, CA; another on a college campus in Denver, CO; while the last is located at a Veterans Medical Center in Perry Point, Maryland. Two additional campuses are scheduled to open in 2008: one in Iowa and one in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

AmeriCorps*VISTA

AmeriCorps*VISTA, or Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), provides full-time members to nonprofit, faith-based and other community organizations, and public agencies to create and expand programs that ultimately bring low-income individuals and communities out of poverty. There are currently over 5,000 VISTA members serving in 1,200 VISTA programs nationwide.

Grantees

According to the AmeriCorps website, since the creation of AmeriCorps in 1993 more than 250,000 individuals across the United States have served hundreds of communities in every state of the nation. Some of the programs, organizations, and institutions funded through the AmeriCorps program include Jumpstart for Young Children, Citizen Schools, City Year, YMCA, Girl Scouts of the USA, Boy Scouts of America, Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers (US), Big Sisters (US), Camp Fire USA, Habitat for Humanity and Teach for America.

Successes

While ongoing discussion has occurred about the range and efficacy of evaluating the successes of AmeriCorps, there has been a variety of documentation supporting the program. AmeriCorps provided fiscal and personnel to support the start-up of innovative new national programs, including City Year, Public Allies and Teach for America. It also brought vital resources to established programs, including Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers Big Sisters and the American Red Cross.

AmeriCorps is reported to increase the effectiveness of community service. Successes for individual AmeriCorps members include increasing their commitment to community service, increasing community-based activism, connection to their communities, knowledge of community problems, engagement in the political process, and voting participation.

Criticism

According to a 1998 report from Citizens Against Government Waste, AmeriCorps' operational cost amounted to $27,000 per "volunteer" per year.

In 2003, it was reported that AmeriCorps violated federal law by hiring more people than Congress had authorized, and had spent more money than was legally allowed.

In 1995, AmeriCorps gave a $1.1 million grant to an organization called Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The grant eventually had to be returned.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton claimed that AmeriCorps members have "taught millions of children to read." However, in an article by libertarian pundit James Bovard, one unnamed official said the real number is probably less than a dozen, and Robert Sweet, the former director of the National Institute of Education, labelled it "a "fraud." Bovard noted that some AmeriCorps volunteers are themselves GED students and welfare recipients, but did not say if any were found tutoring children in reading. One reading tutor did tell Bovard, "We're not teaching them to read... You just want them to think they're doing a good job." Much of the time where literacy teaching was supposed to be taking place was instead spent putting on puppet shows.

In an article entitled "AmeriCorps: Six years of waste and fraud", Bovard reported that "in Indianapolis, AmeriCorps recruits busied themselves painting a giant mural on the side of a pawnshop." The article also states that as of 2000 nearly half of all AmeriCorps members quit the program before finishing their term of service.

Articles suggest that AmeriCorps volunteers assist citizens with applying for welfare, food stamps, and public housing, and one organization who works with AmeriCorps also lobbies the government for more rent control and public housing.

AmeriCorps gave a grant to an organization called Mississippi Action for Community Education, or MACE, which is located in Greenville, Mississippi, one of the poorest cities in the United States. Bovard described MACE's headquarters as "one of the fanciest buildings in town. The plush leather chairs in the waiting room were in stark contrast to the shabbiness of the neighborhood. Uncle Sam has obviously been good to MACE, which has received money from several federal programs over the years."

The Los Angeles Times reported in 1994 that AmeriCorps funded a project that used the program's recruits to protest "third-strike" legislation. AmeriCorps gave a grant of $2.5 million to the Casa Verde Builders Program to build energy efficient homes in Texas. At that time of writing, only 23 of the 64 AmeriCorps members who signed up completed their work. However, the Casa Verde Builders Program was still allowed to keep the entire grant for its ongoing program, and is still active and recruiting volunteers today.