Press Kit: Mission Serve

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MICHELLE OBAMA AND JILL BIDEN JOIN SERVICENATION ON VETERANS DAY TO LAUNCH MISSION SERVE: FORGING A CONTINUUM OF SERVICE

Alma J. Powell Receives First Annual ServiceNation Award for Excellence in Military and Civilian Service

Michelle Obama, Dr. Jill Biden, and Alma J. Powell, three of the nation's most inspiring advocates of service, will join ServiceNation today to launch MISSION SERVE: Forging a Continuum of Service. The initiative gets underway by partnering more than 50 civilian and military service organizations in 36 programs designed to more closely integrate service to country with service to community, helping grow the service movement that is critical to America's future success.

The First Lady and Dr. Biden will join hundreds of active-duty service members, veterans, military families, and volunteers representing service organizations at a ceremony on Veterans Day at George Washington University. Also speaking at the event will be Undersecretary of the Army Dr. Joseph W. Westphal and Major General Steven R. Abt, Deputy Commander, US Army Accessions Command, which has been a leader in partnering with ServiceNation.

The event, emceed by MTV’s Sway Calloway, will honor the service our troops and their families have given, celebrate the inaugural round of MISSION SERVE initiatives, and award Alma J. Powell, chair of America’s Promise Alliance and wife of General Colin Powell, with the first annual ServiceNation Award for Excellence in Military and Civilian Service for a lifetime of service to our children, communities, and nation.

Bank of America is a proud sponsor of the MISSION SERVE initiative.

Quotes

"Despite the tremendous outpouring of support for our troops, significant gaps remain as these brave young men and women return from the battlefield," said Col. (Ret.) Robert L. Gordon, III, chair of MISSION SERVE and senior vice president for civic leadership of City Year. "MISSION SERVE is evidence of the innovation of America’s service organizations to fill those gaps and address in unison the challenges faced by our veterans, active-duty and reserve service members, and their families."

"Service is the selfless recognition that all of us have a role to play in making our communities great. It is at the heart of everything we do at the Alliance and is an essential tool in our arsenal to fight the high school dropout crisis in this country," said Alma J. Powell, chair, America's Promise Alliance. "I am honored to receive this award and I share it with the millions of Americans—especially our brave soldiers and their families— who everyday step forward to help make life better for those around them, especially our children and youth who are this nation's greatest treasure."

"Veterans from a younger generation are returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world eager to assimilate back into their communities and campuses but often do not have the means to do so," said Army Reserve Staff Sergeant Brian Hawthorne, president of the George Washington University chapter of the Student Veterans of America, who has served two tours of duty in Iraq. "MISSION SERVE reflects the mentality of today’s veterans who want the opportunity to continue their service from the battlefield to the home front. These programs will allow us to do just that."

Event Details

In addition, the Veterans Day MISSION SERVE inauguration event includes:

A care package assembly for families of currently deployed service members. Blue Star Families and ServiceNation, in partnership with Target and the forthcoming PBS documentary “This Emotional Life,” will create more than 500 “Thx Box” care packages for military families and write letters of support to Fort Hood families. Volunteers will assemble in the University’s Marvin Center at 12 noon.
A performance of The Telling Project, an acclaimed veteran and civilian collaboration that uses the medium of theater to open up communication between veterans and their communities. In this 22-minute performance, college students and recent graduates, including five veterans and one military spouse, will tell their own dramatic stories of service.

Watch a livestream of the event at 2:00 PM Eastern on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 here.