Petition to Presidential Candidates: “Expand National Service”

With more than half of all young Americans currently unemployed – representing the lowest level since World War II – two nationally-recognized nonprofit organizations, OUR TIME and ServeNext, teamed together to launch the One Million New Jobs campaign, a bold and ambitions grassroots movement to secure more than one million signatures in support of expanding national service programs. 

Calling the contributions that today's young adults could make to society a “terrible thing to waste,” the petition calls on President Obama and Governor Romney to pledge to create one million new jobs by expanding proven and existing service programs such as AmeriCorps, VISTA, City Year, Habitat for Humanity, Teach for America, and others.

“Every single candidate for office this year will be talking about their plans to create new jobs, but if they're not talking about national service as a potential avenue to accomplish this, then there's a severe disconnect in their thinking,” said Zach Maurin, director of ServiceNation’s ServeNext Initiative.  “Expanding national service programs is the epitome of a win-win: it puts young Americans to work and tackles some of our country’s most pressing challenges.  Our goal is to make sure that every candidate running for office understands these benefits and voices their plans for the future of federally funded national service."

“Getting the attention of our politicians is especially difficult right now.  But we believe that showing one million Americans in support of creating one million new service positions will be a powerful statement that's impossible to ignore," said Matthew Segal, founder of OUR TIME. "But we're not simply looking for people to add their name to a petition and then move on to something else.  We're looking for passionate, active voices who can then take action in their communities to continue stressing the importance of national service to all candidates and current office holders."

The One Million New Jobs petition can be found at www.onemillionnewjobs.org.