Advocating For National Service A Priority In Stephanie’s Life

Stephanie Sacco has a full schedule. She works as the Runaway and Homeless Youth Counselor and Community Resource Specialist for the Rochester Center for Youth Services, is a leader of the local AmeriCorps Alums chapter, and volunteers as a ServeNext District Captain. Why does she make advocating for national service a priority in her life?

To make sure national service doesn’t disappear, which is a real danger at this point. Without national service organizations like AmeriCorps and Habitat for Humanity, Stephanie knows America’s youth would lose invaluable job opportunities, struggling communities would lose critical support, and millions of people around the country would just be plum out of luck.

Stephanie got her start advocating for national service last year as a ServeNext Field Organizer. When her term wrapped up, she chose to continue as a volunteer District Captain. Last month Stephanie set up a successful meeting with the Deputy Regional Director for Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY). She and three other AmeriCorps Alums used the meeting to educate the Senator’s staff on AmeriCorps ability to build local nonprofits capacity and reduce youth unemployment. They let the staff know that in the last two years there were over 1 million applications for AmeriCorps but only 80,000 spots each year.

They ended the meeting by asking that the Senator do more to reach across the aisle and explain the value of AmeriCorps to his fellow Representative. Stephanie knows that a lot of people simply don’t understand what national service is and are willing to cut it because they don’t know its value. This is why Stephanie is dedicated to raising awareness of AmeriCorps local impact in Rochester in her role as District Captain. 

Something else Stephanie is dedicated to is having fun. So she deiced to combine her interests by working with fellow Rochester AmeriCorps Alums to put together a video describing why and how AmeriCorps works for Rochester. Next on their agenda is inviting New York’s Members of Congress to come out and participate in a service project so they can see the power of service first hand in Rochester.

Our initiative ServeNext is looking District Captains around the country, so if you are like Stephanie and believe it’s important to raise awareness about national service programs’ local impact. Learn more about becoming a District Captain.