Fund City Year's community service in DC schools!

A new school year as brought Washington, DC it's largest corps of AmeriCorps Members ever - 169 serving in 16 schools! With their help, and yours, we've been able to start the new school year strong with three successful service days since the end of August that engaged over 430 volunteers in over 1,000 hours of service donated to communities across DC.

Highlights from our recent service days include:

• Our Back to School Service Day was held at Patterson Elementary the Saturday before school started in DC $3,598 worth of value was donated to the city by volunteers and new corps members who painted playground graphics and wall murals to get the school ready for students to arrive the following Monday.
• At Aramark Buidling Community Day, Aramark employees and City Year corps members volunteered at Mary's Center, a health center that provides health care, family literacy and social services to individuals and families in need of extra support. Nearly $9,000 worth of work was donated to Mary's Center as volunteers spruced up the outside space with landscaping and small construction projects for the garden and painted murals inside to brighten the center with positive messages for clients.
• American Express Service Day brought together 350 volunteers from partners such as American Express, Delta Air Lines, HandsOn DC, Martha's Table, Gearin' Up Bicycles, Washington Hilton, and Covenant House. Hosted by the Washington Hilton, volunteers donated over $27,000 to to organizations across the city.

And that's just the beginning! Our corps is hard at work preparing for Make a Difference Day, to be held Saturday, October 24th at Amidon-Bowen Elementary. This and other service days throughout the fall lead up to our biggest service day or the year - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. If you're interested in voluneering that day, please check the link below. More information will be posted as the details are finalized.

Links:

• Volunteer for City Year DC's 2016 MLK Day
• Learn more about City Year
• Our next admissions deadline is November 15th

In the final two months of our service year, City Year Washington, DC AmeriCorps Members hosted five service days and engaged 613 volunteers in nearly 3000 hours of service!

Highlights from our recent service days include:

• Comcast volunteers helped beautify Houston Elementary school with indoor and outdoor projects including murals, garden boxes, and building and painting a new sign for the school.
• CEB volunteers worked to beautify the exteriors of two of our partner schools – Stanton Elementary and Garfield Elementary – with landscaping projects including planting flowers and building garden boxes for classes to grow their own produce for the surrounding community.
• Dimension Data volunteers painted several murals at Amidon-Bowen Elementary featuring portraits of diverse figures with inspirational quotes as well as one with the school's motto: "Work hard, Persist, Succeed."
• Deloitte volunteers helped kick off the planning time for City Year’s Summer Leadership Academy – a week-long program for DC public school students to review academic skills before the start of a new school year. In addition to taking inventory of supplies and assisting with recruitment calls, volunteers designed new evaluation systems to help City Year measure the effectiveness of our programming.
• Clifford Chance volunteers built on the work of a previous service day and stained eight garden boxes and one trellis bench build by Dimension Data volunteers. They also helped organize the library at Amidon-Bowen.

Because of your support, this year we helped over 2,000 volunteers serve 111,385 hours and donate $430,948 in value to the city of Washington, DC. We’re very proud of all the hard work our volunteers put in to help make our communities better and grateful for your support this year. We couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you.

Links:

• Learn more about City Year Washington, DC

City Year Washington, DC AmeriCorps Members are almost finished their service year, but that doesn’t mean we’re slowing down! Since Martin Luther King Day we’ve hosted two service days and engaged nearly 300 volunteers in over 1,000 hours of service!

At a service day hosted for members of the Field School Community, volunteers made 150 PB&J Sandwiches and painted 10 signs for use at Ingenuity Prep Charter School. Those and other projects resulted in $11,374.86 in total value donated back to the city of Washington, DC.

For Starbucks Global Youth Service Day, Starbucks partners volunteered with City Year at Hart Middle School where City Year hosted Student Service Week – a week-long program held over DC Public Schools’ spring break for high school students to earn community service hours needed for graduation. Together, the students and volunteers from Starbucks painted new and rehabilitated old murals throughout the school and made arts and crafts kits for Project Sunshine, which supports children and families living with medical challenges. Those and other projects resulted in $30,952 in total value donated back to the city of Washington, DC.

We’re so grateful for your continued support and can’t wait to share the results of our last few service projects this spring.

Links:

• Learn more about City Year Washington, DC
• City Year is still accepting applications for next year!

Thanks to help from supporters like you, City Year kicked off 2015 with our largest service day of the year on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. With nearly 1,000 volunteers, we served in three schools in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Washington, DC: Eastern High School, Eliot-Hine Middle School, and Center City Public Charter School.

Together, our volunteers contributed over 3,800 volunteer hours that resulted in $147,000 worth of work donated back to the people of Washington, DC. We painted completed 56 separate projects including: 85 individual murals to beautify schools and inspire students, 10 benches to increase the use of schools’ outdoor spaces, and  1,000 sandwiches and 400 supply kits to donate to homeless shelters.

We’re so grateful for your continued support. We have several other service days in the works for spring and can’t wait to share those results with you.

Links:

• Learn more about City Year Washington, DC